WEBVTT 00:00:06.220 --> 00:00:09.240 Well, hey now, saints, sinners, backsliders, 00:00:09.339 --> 00:00:12.640 and even the banjo pickers. You've tuned into 00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:15.259 the semi seminary and the gospel broadcast where 00:00:15.259 --> 00:00:17.359 the book of Revelation shares a pew with a beat 00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:20.500 -up Gibson. The old preacher's voice sometimes 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:22.940 sounds like a busted jukebox spinning grace and 00:00:22.940 --> 00:00:27.239 grit in equal measure. And today's message, it 00:00:27.239 --> 00:00:30.519 ain't for sunny skies. It's a thundercloud in 00:00:30.519 --> 00:00:34.079 4 -4 time. A spiritual weather report for a fractured 00:00:34.079 --> 00:00:37.460 world where... diving head first into Bob Dylan's 00:00:37.460 --> 00:00:41.960 1963 apocalyptic song, A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall. 00:00:42.119 --> 00:00:46.079 But listen, the song isn't just a song about 00:00:46.079 --> 00:00:49.219 what's coming. This is a song about what already 00:00:49.219 --> 00:00:52.899 is, a modern day Jeremiah standing in the rubble 00:00:52.899 --> 00:00:57.539 with nothing but a harmonica and holy fire. This 00:00:57.539 --> 00:01:02.710 is theology with blisters on its feet. And I'll 00:01:02.710 --> 00:01:04.189 just go ahead and tell you here in the intro, 00:01:04.269 --> 00:01:09.549 here's how I see it. Imagine the prophet, not 00:01:09.549 --> 00:01:14.450 just Dylan, but Jeremiah, or Isaiah, or Joel, 00:01:14.530 --> 00:01:19.730 or Amos, walking back home after delivering judgment, 00:01:20.010 --> 00:01:23.969 say, in the marketplace. His cloak still damp 00:01:23.969 --> 00:01:27.629 from the storm of vision, and he sits down at 00:01:27.629 --> 00:01:31.209 the kitchen table. His... Mama puts a plate of 00:01:31.209 --> 00:01:33.730 food in front of him and says, where have you 00:01:33.730 --> 00:01:37.090 been, baby? What'd you see? What'd you hear? 00:01:37.150 --> 00:01:42.989 Who'd you meet? What are you gonna do now? And 00:01:42.989 --> 00:01:46.569 the prophet leans back in his chair, eyes burning 00:01:46.569 --> 00:01:49.090 with the ache of all he's carried, and he says, 00:01:49.170 --> 00:01:56.310 Mom, do you really wanna know? Okay, here's the 00:01:56.310 --> 00:02:02.219 truth. And that's what this song is. It's the 00:02:02.219 --> 00:02:04.980 response of the one who's seen way too much to 00:02:04.980 --> 00:02:08.879 stay quiet. It's prophetic lament wrapped in 00:02:08.879 --> 00:02:12.580 blue -eyed innocence and dirt road grit. It's 00:02:12.580 --> 00:02:16.900 Bob Dylan, yes, but it's more than that. It's 00:02:16.900 --> 00:02:20.240 the echo of every prophet who ever stood between 00:02:20.240 --> 00:02:23.180 God and a broken people pointing out the ruin 00:02:23.180 --> 00:02:27.960 and refusing to look away. We're not just listening 00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:30.759 to Bob Dylan. We're walking beside him. We're 00:02:30.759 --> 00:02:34.680 exegeting his lament just like we unpack a parable 00:02:34.680 --> 00:02:38.699 So we're gonna look for God's fingerprints in 00:02:38.699 --> 00:02:43.099 the ash and ask What does it mean to still believe 00:02:43.099 --> 00:02:48.740 in mercy even the midst of the sky falling I'll 00:02:48.740 --> 00:02:58.319 see you on the other side So here we go. First 00:02:58.319 --> 00:03:02.439 question. Where have you been? Dylan says I've 00:03:02.439 --> 00:03:05.919 stumbled on the side of 12 misty mountains. This 00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:09.139 is Moses territory right off the bat. Exodus 00:03:09.139 --> 00:03:13.560 24 and 18. Then Moses entered the cloud as he 00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:15.840 went up on the mountain and as he stayed on the 00:03:15.840 --> 00:03:18.500 mountain 40 days and 40 nights, the prophet begins 00:03:18.500 --> 00:03:22.120 in the fog. Revelation comes, but not at all 00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:25.680 at once. and Dylan admits there's stumbling involved. 00:03:25.759 --> 00:03:29.120 He says, I've walked and I've crawled on six 00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:33.520 crooked highways. Luke chapter three and five 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:36.039 says the crooked road shall become straight. 00:03:36.919 --> 00:03:42.219 The rough ways smooth. Now, these highways aren't 00:03:42.219 --> 00:03:47.319 just inconvenient. They're unjust. Dylan's not 00:03:47.319 --> 00:03:49.759 strolling down Main Street. He's scraping his 00:03:49.759 --> 00:03:53.039 knees on the paths of systems. that were never 00:03:53.039 --> 00:03:58.159 built for nor intended for barefoot. He says 00:03:58.159 --> 00:04:01.379 I've been 10 ,000 miles in the mouth of a graveyard. 00:04:01.699 --> 00:04:06.560 Ezekiel 37 and 2 says he led me back and forth 00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:09.159 among them and I saw a great many bones on the 00:04:09.159 --> 00:04:12.919 floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 00:04:15.219 --> 00:04:18.319 This graveyard isn't a metaphor, it's a memory. 00:04:19.689 --> 00:04:25.730 War dead, forgotten souls. And the prophet doesn't 00:04:25.730 --> 00:04:30.509 report from the edge. He's 10 ,000 miles into 00:04:30.509 --> 00:04:36.970 the loss. This isn't a distant chronicle. This 00:04:36.970 --> 00:04:41.990 is embodied theology. Dylan's the blue -eyed 00:04:41.990 --> 00:04:45.230 son, yes, but he's also the crucified Christ 00:04:45.230 --> 00:04:52.779 walking willingly into Gethsemane. The next question, 00:04:52.779 --> 00:04:57.360 what did you see? Dylan says, I saw a newborn 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:01.000 baby with wild wolves all around it. Isaiah 11 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:05.899 and six, the wolf will live with the lamb. Dylan's 00:05:05.899 --> 00:05:09.259 flipping Isaiah. The dream of peace has been 00:05:09.259 --> 00:05:14.500 deferred. This Dylan's world isn't Eden, it's 00:05:14.500 --> 00:05:18.959 exposure. And injustice doesn't wait for you 00:05:18.959 --> 00:05:23.889 to grow teeth. It's a portrait of innocence under 00:05:23.889 --> 00:05:27.970 siege of vulnerable life already surrounded by 00:05:27.970 --> 00:05:31.910 systemic threat Whether that's poverty or racism 00:05:31.910 --> 00:05:35.970 war zones where infants cry with no cradle to 00:05:35.970 --> 00:05:41.009 hold them He saw he said I saw a highway of diamonds 00:05:41.009 --> 00:05:46.050 with nobody on it Matthew 6 and 19 do not store 00:05:46.050 --> 00:05:50.009 up for yourselves treasures on earth where Moths 00:05:50.009 --> 00:05:53.110 and vermin destroy. A road paved with diamonds 00:05:53.110 --> 00:05:55.889 ought to be the height of prosperity, but it's 00:05:55.889 --> 00:06:00.629 empty. That's the bitter irony of global capitalism, 00:06:00.970 --> 00:06:05.230 wealth stockpiled, not shared. This is colonial 00:06:05.230 --> 00:06:08.509 loot turned infrastructure that no one even walks 00:06:08.509 --> 00:06:13.589 on. It's Congo's mineral wealth that builds smartphones 00:06:13.589 --> 00:06:17.930 but never feeds the hands that mine it. It's 00:06:17.930 --> 00:06:20.230 the American dream boarded up in the heart of 00:06:20.230 --> 00:06:25.750 the richest nation on earth He said I saw a black 00:06:25.750 --> 00:06:28.810 branch with blood that kept dripping John 15 00:06:28.810 --> 00:06:31.189 and 6 if you do not remain in me You're like 00:06:31.189 --> 00:06:34.370 a branch that is thrown away in withers, but 00:06:34.370 --> 00:06:42.209 here Here the branch bleeds This is the crucifixion 00:06:42.209 --> 00:06:46.720 tree the lynching tree the tree planted by empire 00:06:46.720 --> 00:06:50.459 instead of streams of water. It bleeds because 00:06:50.459 --> 00:06:54.839 the world never got around to stop crucifying. 00:06:57.379 --> 00:07:00.959 It's Trayvon's hoodie. It's Emmett's tree. It's 00:07:00.959 --> 00:07:05.399 a nation that cannot claim peace until it deals 00:07:05.399 --> 00:07:11.850 with its own blood soaked roots. He said, I saw 00:07:11.850 --> 00:07:14.810 10 ,000 talkers whose tongues were all broken. 00:07:14.889 --> 00:07:19.410 Isaiah 6 and 5, woe to me. I am a man of unclean 00:07:19.410 --> 00:07:23.410 lips. This is Babel after the broadcast era. 00:07:24.170 --> 00:07:28.990 Voices everywhere, but none that heal. Everybody's 00:07:28.990 --> 00:07:31.870 talking, but nobody's listening, right? Words 00:07:31.870 --> 00:07:35.829 are divorced now from wisdom. Twitter prophets 00:07:35.829 --> 00:07:39.410 with no truth. Influencers with no integrity. 00:07:40.349 --> 00:07:44.209 sermons that inspire, but they don't convict. 00:07:44.949 --> 00:07:49.329 It's a cultural noise machine where meaning gets 00:07:49.329 --> 00:07:55.490 lost and static. Dylan continues. He said, I 00:07:55.490 --> 00:07:59.029 saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young 00:07:59.029 --> 00:08:04.329 children. His contemporary Joel three and 10. 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:08.060 beat your plowsheers into swords, but Dylan doesn't 00:08:08.060 --> 00:08:14.980 see forged swords. He sees inherited ones. He 00:08:14.980 --> 00:08:18.279 sees passed down trauma packaged as patriotism. 00:08:19.439 --> 00:08:23.839 It's the school to prison pipeline. It's toy 00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:28.600 soldiers becoming teenage conscripts. It's the 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:31.579 legacy of systemic violence that teaches children 00:08:31.579 --> 00:08:36.980 to fight before they ever learn to feel We have 00:08:36.980 --> 00:08:40.179 made of we've made violence a rite of passage 00:08:40.179 --> 00:08:50.259 and that blood runs upstream What did you hear 00:08:50.259 --> 00:08:54.980 Dylan said I heard the sound of a thunder roared 00:08:54.980 --> 00:09:00.860 out a warning Revelation 10 and 3. He gave a 00:09:00.860 --> 00:09:03.580 loud shout like the roar of a lion. Thunder in 00:09:03.580 --> 00:09:07.659 Hebrew is often divine voice, not suggestion. 00:09:08.539 --> 00:09:16.940 Command. Not opinion. The truth. Dylan hears 00:09:16.940 --> 00:09:24.679 it. Dewey? He said, I heard 10 ,000 whispering 00:09:24.679 --> 00:09:31.720 and nobody listening. Amos 8 and 11, not a famine 00:09:31.720 --> 00:09:34.720 of food, but of hearing the words of the Lord. 00:09:34.759 --> 00:09:40.379 There's a noise to silence. When the marginalized 00:09:40.379 --> 00:09:46.179 speaks and no one listens, injustice doesn't 00:09:46.179 --> 00:09:53.610 continue, it compounds. He said, I heard one 00:09:53.610 --> 00:09:56.090 person starve. I heard many people laughing. 00:09:56.309 --> 00:09:59.570 Proverbs 21 and 13, whoever shuts their ears 00:09:59.570 --> 00:10:02.149 to the cry of the poor will also cry out and 00:10:02.149 --> 00:10:08.629 not be answered. This is moral indictment. Not 00:10:08.629 --> 00:10:11.789 just the hunger part, which is bad enough, but 00:10:11.789 --> 00:10:18.169 the mockery of the hunger. Not just of poverty, 00:10:18.269 --> 00:10:23.389 but of performance. He said, I heard the song 00:10:23.389 --> 00:10:27.230 of a poet who died in the gutter. Lamentations 00:10:27.230 --> 00:10:29.809 two and nine are prophets also find no vision 00:10:29.809 --> 00:10:31.809 from the Lord. It's not just that the prophet 00:10:31.809 --> 00:10:35.350 died, it's that he's saying anyway, even in the 00:10:35.350 --> 00:10:43.029 gutter, even with nobody clapping. And then the 00:10:43.029 --> 00:10:48.169 question, what will you do now? And the prophet's 00:10:48.169 --> 00:10:52.490 response. I'm going back out for the rain starts 00:10:52.490 --> 00:10:57.610 a -falling. James 1 and 22 do not merely listen 00:10:57.610 --> 00:11:01.389 to the word, so deceive yourselves. Do what it 00:11:01.389 --> 00:11:08.590 says. Dylan, the prophet, the narrator, doesn't 00:11:08.590 --> 00:11:15.909 retreat. He returns. Not to comfort, but to calling. 00:11:17.490 --> 00:11:21.220 Before the storm finishes, He's already moving. 00:11:23.419 --> 00:11:26.820 He says, I'll walk to the depths of the deepest 00:11:26.820 --> 00:11:31.419 black forest. Psalm 23 and four, even though 00:11:31.419 --> 00:11:33.860 I walk through the very valley of the shadow 00:11:33.860 --> 00:11:38.120 of death, not tiptoe, not dance, walk. The work 00:11:38.120 --> 00:11:42.700 is in the walking and going where the gospel 00:11:42.700 --> 00:11:49.240 needs it most. Where hunger is ugly. Where souls 00:11:49.240 --> 00:11:53.120 are forgotten Matthew 25 35 and 36 for I was 00:11:53.120 --> 00:11:56.639 hungry and you gave me something to eat Dylan's 00:11:56.639 --> 00:11:59.259 gospel is Incarnational. It doesn't preach from 00:11:59.259 --> 00:12:03.299 pulpits. It shows up with soup. It sits down 00:12:03.299 --> 00:12:08.340 and it remembers the forgotten and I'll tell 00:12:08.340 --> 00:12:11.039 it and I'll think it and I'll speak it and I'll 00:12:11.039 --> 00:12:15.490 breathe it Jeremiah 20 and 9 is word is in my 00:12:15.490 --> 00:12:19.690 heart like a fire. I am weary of holding it in. 00:12:19.830 --> 00:12:25.990 Indeed, Jeremiah says, I cannot. You don't have 00:12:25.990 --> 00:12:32.230 to force real prophecy. It leaks out. It burns 00:12:32.230 --> 00:12:38.690 holes in your silence. And then Dylan says, but 00:12:38.690 --> 00:12:42.129 I'll know my song well before I started singing. 00:12:43.940 --> 00:12:46.740 Colossians 3 and 16, let the word of Christ dwell 00:12:46.740 --> 00:12:51.759 in you richly. This is theology as testimony. 00:12:53.340 --> 00:12:57.320 You can't sing what you haven't lived. And once 00:12:57.320 --> 00:13:02.200 you've lived it, you can't not sing. So, may 00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:05.700 the thunder wake you. May the rain cleanse you. 00:13:06.620 --> 00:13:08.679 May the words of the prophets burn like coal 00:13:08.679 --> 00:13:11.789 on your lips. And may you, like Dylan's blue 00:13:11.789 --> 00:13:14.649 -eyed son, walk back into the storm, knowing 00:13:14.649 --> 00:13:25.590 your song well before you start a -singing. So 00:13:25.590 --> 00:13:28.950 what do we do with all this, friends? Well, we 00:13:28.950 --> 00:13:32.409 remember where it started, at that kitchen table. 00:13:33.590 --> 00:13:36.090 A prophet sits soaked from the storm. A mother 00:13:36.090 --> 00:13:40.090 asks the simplest questions in the world. Where 00:13:40.090 --> 00:13:41.950 have you been? What did you see? What did you 00:13:41.950 --> 00:13:46.850 hear? Who did you meet? What do you do? And Dylan, 00:13:46.950 --> 00:13:49.370 just like Isaiah, just like Jeremiah, doesn't 00:13:49.370 --> 00:13:53.490 flinch. Doesn't protect her from the pain. Says 00:13:53.490 --> 00:13:58.269 you want the truth? Here's the truth. You know 00:13:58.269 --> 00:14:03.190 what? That's our calling too. To speak it. To 00:14:03.190 --> 00:14:07.330 sing it. To breathe it. to walk into the broken 00:14:07.330 --> 00:14:09.970 places and reflect it from the mountain so all 00:14:09.970 --> 00:14:14.190 souls can see it. Not from the safety of this 00:14:14.190 --> 00:14:16.929 podcast studio or the pulpit or the back pew, 00:14:17.830 --> 00:14:20.029 but from the depths of the deepest black forest, 00:14:20.830 --> 00:14:22.509 where the people are many and their hands are 00:14:22.509 --> 00:14:25.769 all empty. This isn't just a hard rain. This 00:14:25.769 --> 00:14:31.350 is a baptism of burden. But the truth is, the 00:14:31.350 --> 00:14:35.419 prophet doesn't wait for the rain to stop. Prophet 00:14:35.419 --> 00:14:39.740 walks into it. Maybe that's what Dylan meant 00:14:39.740 --> 00:14:42.720 all along. You don't start singing because you're 00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:46.200 safe. You start singing because you know your 00:14:46.200 --> 00:14:51.620 song well. So go now, prophets. Go tell it. Go 00:14:51.620 --> 00:14:55.759 sing it. Go live it. And remember, the spirit 00:14:55.759 --> 00:14:59.759 still moves through thunder. Sometimes the gospel 00:14:59.759 --> 00:15:03.559 still sounds like gravel in a harmonica. Yeah. 00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:08.100 A hard rain is gonna fall. But you know what? 00:15:09.419 --> 00:15:13.620 Soul grace. Amen. And amen.