U2 Top Ten Song 6: “40”

When U2 were finishing up their third studio album, they needed a final track. They had recorded all their songs. They needed to write another. Opening a Bible, Bono began to sing the text of Psalm 40. The song came together in a single session. This throw away track became U2’s signature song for decades. They will usually end their concerts with it. It is not a rocking, bombastic anthem, but a meditative, meaningful, spiritual reflection and question. How long will we sing this song, God?

The world is broken. Things are not as they should be. Yet the person of faith turns back to God and prays for restoration, forgiveness, and salvation. In Psalm 40, David prays for God to save him. He prays with confidence and hope, not because he is deserving or good, but because of who he knows God to be. God gives him this new song of hope. He knows he will be heard.

This theme is fulfilled later in scripture in the coming of Christ. Much later, in the visions John received on Patmos and recorded in Revelation, we see the cosmic fulfillment on Christ for all creation in chapter 5. No one in creation is worthy to open the seals on God’s plan to heal the universe. As people begin to despair that justice, restoration, and hope will ever be fulfilled, Jesus steps onto the scene. He is the mighty Lion of Judah, the Messiah, yet He is a sacrificial lamb, slain to heal creation. He is worthy.

As He takes the scroll of God’s plan, all of heaven falls down in worship and the sing the New Song:

“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth…
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!
…To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!
Amen”

This hope is, in essence, the throughline of U2’s message and philosophy.