When Lazarus comes out at Jesus' command, John says that his hands and feet are bound with grave cloths and his face is wrapped with a cloth. Jesus tells those present, 'Loose him, and let him go.'
The burial materials remain visible evidence of where Lazarus has just been.
Jewish burial normally involved preparing and wrapping the body in cloth, sometimes with aromatic substances. John's terminology need not imply an Egyptian mummy-style wrapping in which every limb was immobilized by one continuous bandage. Burial practice varied, and the text's description should be allowed to stand without reconstructing an elaborate wrapping technique.
The face cloth has a parallel in John's later description of the soudarion in Jesus' empty tomb.
The cloths make Lazarus' return to life tangible. He emerges still marked by the practices of burial and must be released by those around him.
They also create an instructive contrast with Jesus' later resurrection: Lazarus returns to ordinary mortal life and is unbound by others, whereas Jesus' grave cloths are found left behind in the empty tomb.