And then the incredible thing happened. Jesus Christ is alive again, he has risen from the dead. Mary Magdalene has seen him, and Peter, and two other disciples. When he appeared to the rest in the Upper Room the swift succession of events left them stunned with joy. Here was no ghost, but a real person. Although his body had marvellously changed since the tomb closed upon it, he was the same Jesus Christ they had always known, and during the Great Forty Days that followed Easter they realised that henceforward, though they could not see him, they would never be parted from him again.

Their plans for resuming their former occupations were pushed aside and forgotten and in their place a more sublime prospect was unfolding. “…you will be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth” and “…remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (NRSV, Acts 1:8; Matthew 28:20). So the last chapter of the Gospel became the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.