Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name … Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

John 20:30–31, 21:25

The apostle’s breath rustles the pages as he blows upon the glistening, tacky ink — the final words of the book he has written, the book he has prayed over, the book the Spirit of God whispered into his soul in the darkest hours of the night while the candles guttered and the stars winked and the world slept silently. The Savior’s words echo in his mind: It is finished. For a moment, the memories come flooding back: everything he saw, all the impossible things made possible in the hands of the God-man. There were so many to choose from, and yet he knows these are the ones. They flowed from his pen as if the words had already been written. And indeed they had, before time was time, for God’s word has always been and shall never pass away.