From Mud to Melody
In my last sermon about patience I shared my story about Psalm 40:1-6 and how it led me to understand grace. Psalm 40 is a multi-layered song about salvation:
I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,
and he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
and steadied me as I walked along.
He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the Lord.
Oh, the joys of those who trust the Lord,
who have no confidence in the proud
or in those who worship idols.
O Lord my God, you have performed many wonders for us.
Your plans for us are too numerous to list.
You have no equal.
If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds,
I would never come to the end of them. (Psalm 40:1-6 NLT)
The mud and mire are a great metaphor for the experience of salvation because we were made from dirt and it reminds us of our humanity, our mortality (for dust we are and to dust we must return), and our spiritual and moral frailty.
But from this mud and mire God rescues us. That is the crux of Psalm 40. God is the one who works, not the sinner. We cry out and wait for His deliverance, but that is all. It is God who turns to us, hears our cries, comes down, lifts up, establishes, steadies, causes to sing, and does many more wonderful works that cannot be narrated. All the action words are about what GOD does for US and that is how salvation works; God gives freely as we wait, receive, and respond.
Psalm 40 is a personal song (cf. “I waited…to help me…turned to me and hear my cry … me out of despair… my feet.. steadied me.. given me..). Salvation is a personal experience of the sinner who realises his or her true condition and longs for life, love, and acceptance. It is a unique journey of deliverance and restoration.
But salvation is also a communal experience. The personal testimony of the saved initiates a chain reaction of multitudes’ encounters with God (v 3). Psalm 40 is thus also a communal song, connecting the sinner to a community of fellowship. In the shared experience of grace, we learn to sing, praise and give thanks together.
Psalm 40 is also a Messianic song; it is a prophetic poem about Jesus (c.f. Hebrews 10:5-7). Jesus Christ is the One who came down and mingled with clay-like humanity. The text also speaks explicitly about a body (mouth, feet, etc), which foreshadows the incarnation of the Word. Just as Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross uttered cries of anguish in bearing the miry depths of human sinfulness and death, the speaker of Psalm 40 cried in the pit of despair. Because Jesus bore our humanity, our mortality, and our moral failures on Himself, He understands our cries and can best rescue us.
And because He resurrected, He lifts us out of our mortal muddy state and give us eternal life. And so we sing, from mud to melody, “The Lord is great!” (Psalm 40:16).
by: Jinha Kim
"But those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:14