About Jesus after the Resurrection

Why could it be, do we think, that Jesus only appeared to his friends after the Resurrection? He could have chosen to go straight to heaven to be reunited within the Trinity but no, he chose to stay with his friends, to comfort and reassure and then, to encourage and strengthen them for the task ahead.

He could have appeared to non-believers who might (and only might) have thought that, as he had died, and was now alive, they should believe in him. Those who hated him might have tried to kill him again and found out that he was now immortal, and had no choice but to believe in him!

No - they had had their chance, freely - without tricks or magic - to accept Jesus for who he was. For Jesus, his mother and his beloved disciples, those forty days must have been a time of utter peace and joy, a union of love.