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I managed to read a bit of Forde today:

We see in the death of Jesus our death, and we remember that we are dust.  We can begin to take the truth.  We learn dying.  Our story is not that of the exit from and return to glory of an undying soul.  The cross destroys all that.  It "destroys the wisdom of the wise."  "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." That marks the parameters of our story as afar as human possibility is concerned.  We see, as Luther puts it, the way things really are.  We look at all things through "suffering and the cross."  We live only on the strength of the fact that the Creator breathed his Spirit into the dust and gave us life.  We live on "borrowed time"—time lent us by the Creator.  Yet we also see in the death of Jesus on the cross our rebellion against that life, and we note that there is absolutely no way out now except one.  God vindicated the crucified Jesus by raising him from the dead.  So the question and the hope comes to us.  "If we die with him shall we not also live with him?"  That is the end of the story—for the time being.  But it is the beginning of faith. (9)

Pastor F did me a great honor by assigning me this book.  Studying the theology of the cross is a perfect companion to Walther's division of Law and Gospel.   And it is the perfect medicine for my troubled heart and mind, to rest in the challenge and the Truth of the cross.


The story of Myrtle is the story of the cross, how it saves me, shapes me, sustains me.  The story of Myrtle begins, continues, and ends with the cross, even when I do not understand such.   Wanting to understand is enough Myrtle.  It is enough because Christ is understands and He is the one who holds you even as you struggle.
 


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!