Well, hey now, saints, sinners, backsliders,
and even the banjo pickers. You've tuned into
the semi seminary and the gospel broadcast where
the book of Revelation shares a pew with a beat
-up Gibson. The old preacher's voice sometimes
sounds like a busted jukebox spinning grace and
grit in equal measure. And today's message, it
ain't for sunny skies. It's a thundercloud in
4 -4 time. A spiritual weather report for a fractured
world where... diving head first into Bob Dylan's
1963 apocalyptic song, A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall.
But listen, the song isn't just a song about
what's coming. This is a song about what already
is, a modern day Jeremiah standing in the rubble
with nothing but a harmonica and holy fire. This
is theology with blisters on its feet. And I'll
just go ahead and tell you here in the intro,
here's how I see it. Imagine the prophet, not
just Dylan, but Jeremiah, or Isaiah, or Joel,
or Amos, walking back home after delivering judgment,
say, in the marketplace. His cloak still damp
from the storm of vision, and he sits down at
the kitchen table. His... Mama puts a plate of
food in front of him and says, where have you
been, baby? What'd you see? What'd you hear?
Who'd you meet? What are you gonna do now? And
the prophet leans back in his chair, eyes burning
with the ache of all he's carried, and he says,
Mom, do you really wanna know? Okay, here's the
truth. And that's what this song is. It's the
response of the one who's seen way too much to
stay quiet. It's prophetic lament wrapped in
blue -eyed innocence and dirt road grit. It's
Bob Dylan, yes, but it's more than that. It's
the echo of every prophet who ever stood between
God and a broken people pointing out the ruin
and refusing to look away. We're not just listening
to Bob Dylan. We're walking beside him. We're
exegeting his lament just like we unpack a parable
So we're gonna look for God's fingerprints in
the ash and ask What does it mean to still believe
in mercy even the midst of the sky falling I'll
see you on the other side So here we go. First
question. Where have you been? Dylan says I've
stumbled on the side of 12 misty mountains. This
is Moses territory right off the bat. Exodus
24 and 18. Then Moses entered the cloud as he
went up on the mountain and as he stayed on the
mountain 40 days and 40 nights, the prophet begins
in the fog. Revelation comes, but not at all
at once. and Dylan admits there's stumbling involved.
He says, I've walked and I've crawled on six
crooked highways. Luke chapter three and five
says the crooked road shall become straight.
The rough ways smooth. Now, these highways aren't
just inconvenient. They're unjust. Dylan's not
strolling down Main Street. He's scraping his
knees on the paths of systems. that were never
built for nor intended for barefoot. He says
I've been 10 ,000 miles in the mouth of a graveyard.
Ezekiel 37 and 2 says he led me back and forth
among them and I saw a great many bones on the
floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.
This graveyard isn't a metaphor, it's a memory.
War dead, forgotten souls. And the prophet doesn't
report from the edge. He's 10 ,000 miles into
the loss. This isn't a distant chronicle. This
is embodied theology. Dylan's the blue -eyed
son, yes, but he's also the crucified Christ
walking willingly into Gethsemane. The next question,
what did you see? Dylan says, I saw a newborn
baby with wild wolves all around it. Isaiah 11
and six, the wolf will live with the lamb. Dylan's
flipping Isaiah. The dream of peace has been
deferred. This Dylan's world isn't Eden, it's
exposure. And injustice doesn't wait for you
to grow teeth. It's a portrait of innocence under
siege of vulnerable life already surrounded by
systemic threat Whether that's poverty or racism
war zones where infants cry with no cradle to
hold them He saw he said I saw a highway of diamonds
with nobody on it Matthew 6 and 19 do not store
up for yourselves treasures on earth where Moths
and vermin destroy. A road paved with diamonds
ought to be the height of prosperity, but it's
empty. That's the bitter irony of global capitalism,
wealth stockpiled, not shared. This is colonial
loot turned infrastructure that no one even walks
on. It's Congo's mineral wealth that builds smartphones
but never feeds the hands that mine it. It's
the American dream boarded up in the heart of
the richest nation on earth He said I saw a black
branch with blood that kept dripping John 15
and 6 if you do not remain in me You're like
a branch that is thrown away in withers, but
here Here the branch bleeds This is the crucifixion
tree the lynching tree the tree planted by empire
instead of streams of water. It bleeds because
the world never got around to stop crucifying.
It's Trayvon's hoodie. It's Emmett's tree. It's
a nation that cannot claim peace until it deals
with its own blood soaked roots. He said, I saw
10 ,000 talkers whose tongues were all broken.
Isaiah 6 and 5, woe to me. I am a man of unclean
lips. This is Babel after the broadcast era.
Voices everywhere, but none that heal. Everybody's
talking, but nobody's listening, right? Words
are divorced now from wisdom. Twitter prophets
with no truth. Influencers with no integrity.
sermons that inspire, but they don't convict.
It's a cultural noise machine where meaning gets
lost and static. Dylan continues. He said, I
saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young
children. His contemporary Joel three and 10.
beat your plowsheers into swords, but Dylan doesn't
see forged swords. He sees inherited ones. He
sees passed down trauma packaged as patriotism.
It's the school to prison pipeline. It's toy
soldiers becoming teenage conscripts. It's the
legacy of systemic violence that teaches children
to fight before they ever learn to feel We have
made of we've made violence a rite of passage
and that blood runs upstream What did you hear
Dylan said I heard the sound of a thunder roared
out a warning Revelation 10 and 3. He gave a
loud shout like the roar of a lion. Thunder in
Hebrew is often divine voice, not suggestion.
Command. Not opinion. The truth. Dylan hears
it. Dewey? He said, I heard 10 ,000 whispering
and nobody listening. Amos 8 and 11, not a famine
of food, but of hearing the words of the Lord.
There's a noise to silence. When the marginalized
speaks and no one listens, injustice doesn't
continue, it compounds. He said, I heard one
person starve. I heard many people laughing.
Proverbs 21 and 13, whoever shuts their ears
to the cry of the poor will also cry out and
not be answered. This is moral indictment. Not
just the hunger part, which is bad enough, but
the mockery of the hunger. Not just of poverty,
but of performance. He said, I heard the song
of a poet who died in the gutter. Lamentations
two and nine are prophets also find no vision
from the Lord. It's not just that the prophet
died, it's that he's saying anyway, even in the
gutter, even with nobody clapping. And then the
question, what will you do now? And the prophet's
response. I'm going back out for the rain starts
a -falling. James 1 and 22 do not merely listen
to the word, so deceive yourselves. Do what it
says. Dylan, the prophet, the narrator, doesn't
retreat. He returns. Not to comfort, but to calling.
Before the storm finishes, He's already moving.
He says, I'll walk to the depths of the deepest
black forest. Psalm 23 and four, even though
I walk through the very valley of the shadow
of death, not tiptoe, not dance, walk. The work
is in the walking and going where the gospel
needs it most. Where hunger is ugly. Where souls
are forgotten Matthew 25 35 and 36 for I was
hungry and you gave me something to eat Dylan's
gospel is Incarnational. It doesn't preach from
pulpits. It shows up with soup. It sits down
and it remembers the forgotten and I'll tell
it and I'll think it and I'll speak it and I'll
breathe it Jeremiah 20 and 9 is word is in my
heart like a fire. I am weary of holding it in.
Indeed, Jeremiah says, I cannot. You don't have
to force real prophecy. It leaks out. It burns
holes in your silence. And then Dylan says, but
I'll know my song well before I started singing.
Colossians 3 and 16, let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly. This is theology as testimony.
You can't sing what you haven't lived. And once
you've lived it, you can't not sing. So, may
the thunder wake you. May the rain cleanse you.
May the words of the prophets burn like coal
on your lips. And may you, like Dylan's blue
-eyed son, walk back into the storm, knowing
your song well before you start a -singing. So
what do we do with all this, friends? Well, we
remember where it started, at that kitchen table.
A prophet sits soaked from the storm. A mother
asks the simplest questions in the world. Where
have you been? What did you see? What did you
hear? Who did you meet? What do you do? And Dylan,
just like Isaiah, just like Jeremiah, doesn't
flinch. Doesn't protect her from the pain. Says
you want the truth? Here's the truth. You know
what? That's our calling too. To speak it. To
sing it. To breathe it. to walk into the broken
places and reflect it from the mountain so all
souls can see it. Not from the safety of this
podcast studio or the pulpit or the back pew,
but from the depths of the deepest black forest,
where the people are many and their hands are
all empty. This isn't just a hard rain. This
is a baptism of burden. But the truth is, the
prophet doesn't wait for the rain to stop. Prophet
walks into it. Maybe that's what Dylan meant
all along. You don't start singing because you're
safe. You start singing because you know your
song well. So go now, prophets. Go tell it. Go
sing it. Go live it. And remember, the spirit
still moves through thunder. Sometimes the gospel
still sounds like gravel in a harmonica. Yeah.
A hard rain is gonna fall. But you know what?
Soul grace. Amen. And amen.