His disciples came and took away the corpseand buried him; and they went and told Jesus. “We were hoping he would be the one,” they lamented to their traveling companion (Lk 24:21). Whatever we were hoping for seems foolish in retrospect, as if it were all for nothing. Faced with Herod’s brutality, John’s disciples waver. Or the unrecognized stranger who turns out to be the one for whom we are hoping.