Many years ago, just after a very happy Christmas, one of my little girls came to me and said earnestly, "I love Jesus, Mother!"
I clasped her in my arms and said, "When did you find that out, darling?"
"I was looking over my Christmas cards this morning," she said, "and it was this one—and, as I read the words, all at once I knew that He had come to save me!"
And the words were—
"God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life."
[XIII. After His Resurrection]
For forty days after the Lord Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, He appeared to His disciples numbers of times.
St. Paul, in the fifteenth chapter of the First of Corinthians, gives us a list of the times that Jesus appeared. And the list is very wonderful. He says: "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures: and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures: and that He was seen of Cephas (Peter), then of the twelve: after that, He was seen of about five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, He was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all He was seen of me also."
St. Paul referred to the time when he had seen Jesus, and He had spoken to him on the way to Damascus.
The Lord did not live on this earth in those forty days as He had done before, but He was "the same Jesus" Who had been with them throughout His ministry. The same, and yet different. Now in His blessed hands and feet were the marks of the cruel nails of the cross. In His side was the wound which the soldier's wanton spear had made! And the Lord now came in and out among them with a Presence which was quite different from what they had known before, for He came to them when doors were shut and fastened, and He left them without passing through those doors; He simply vanished out of their sight.