You are in some idyllic and bucolic spot. You wake up in your cabin, open the window, look out at a lush green valley below. The morning sun is spreading over the landscape with unthinking generousity; the breeze is kindly ruffling the grass and the birds are chirping like excited school-children. You think to yourself: “This is truly a day only the Good Lord could make.”

That’s the usual context of that expression, or others like it, isn’t it? A day so beautiful, so perfect, that it could only be created and given by God. In his song The Levee’s Gonna Break, Bob Dylan, as is his wont, turns a well-used expression upside down in a certain sense, thereby focusing attention more sharply on what it means when you take it beyond the cliché.

If it keep on raining, the levee’s gonna break
Everybody saying this is a day only the Lord could make

It’s a harsh and a dangerous kind of a place, this place where the levee’s about to break. There are those who are not very kind. “Some of these people gonna strip you of all they can take.” There are those who are lost and confused. “Some of these people don’t know which road to take.” There are those who are hungry and deprived. “Some people got barely enough skin to cover their bones.” There are those who see their predicament and those who have no idea about it. “Some people still sleepin’, some people are wide awake.”

A day only the Lord could make. In other words, a day of the Lord. And even, perhaps, the day of the Lord.

In many Christian churches today (though not all) the first reading would have been from the prophet Zephaniah — from the first chapter of his popular book.

The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.

That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness,

A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers.

And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung.

Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’s wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.

The second reading would have had included some echoes of this, from 1 Thessalonians:

But as to the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When people say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape. But you are not in darkness, brethren, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.

In London, Ontario on November 11th last, Bob Dylan performed a crackling version of The Levee’s Gonna Break. With Paul James replacing Stu and Denny on guitar, it has a somewhat different flavor to other recent versions. Bob’s singing and organ playing are super — he’s really having fun. Click here for a clip.

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