It was an awesome moment. At Jesus' command the huge stone, covering the rock tomb of Lazarus, was taken away. Then all eyes were upon Jesus as He called out to Father God. He intended His prayer to be overheard: it was important that people could hear God the Son and God the Father working together. He wanted them to believe that He had full authority to give life to the dead.
 
Then He commanded the dead man to come out of his grave. Lazarus obeyed even though he had been dead for four days! It was a miracle! Dead people cannot even hear, let alone walk. But Jesus was fulfilling His own prophecy in John 5:25: "I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live." Lazarus was alive; however it was difficult for him to walk: his hands and feet were tightly bound to his body by the strips of burial cloth. Nor could he see where he was going, because his head and face were covered by the burial cloth. He must have looked a strange sight shuffling like a penguin towards the glow of sunshine. So having commanded the dead to listen, live and walk, Jesus completed his rehabilitation, commanding that Lazarus be released from the burial cloths.
 
The power of Jesus to bring new life to the dead is a mark of His divine power. It also demonstrated that He was working intimately with Father God, the penultimate sign that He was the promised Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world (the ultimate sign was His own resurrection). John did not include this account in his Gospel in order to excite the church that death will not come to believers. No, this was a special sign to help people like us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing, we might have eternal life in His Name (John 20:31). Amazingly, those who do believe in Jesus will all be given new bodies when He comes again. Do you believe that?