The Wonder of the Cross – 40 Days with the Music of Vicky Beeching

Day 40 – Holy Saturday – Yesterday, Today and Forever

To Read: 

From the Scriptures:

²¹ Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
    for the hand of God has touched me!
²² Why do you, like God, pursue me,
    never satisfied with my flesh?

²³ “O that my words were written down!
    O that they were inscribed in a book!
²⁴ O that with an iron pen and with lead
    they were engraved on a rock forever!
²⁵ For I know that my vindicator^[a] lives
    and that in the end he will stand upon the earth;
²⁶ and after my skin has been destroyed,
    then in my flesh I shall see God,
²⁷ whom I shall see on my side,
    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
    My heart faints within me!     (Job 19:21-27)

From Vicky Beeching:

Yesterday, Today and Forever

Everlasting God the years go by but you’re unchanging
In this fragile world You are the only firm foundation
Always loving, always true
Always merciful and good, so good

Yesterday today and forever
You are the same, You never change
Yesterday today and forever
You are faithful and we will trust in You

Uncreated one You have no end and no beginning
Earthly powers fade but there is no end to Your kingdom
Always loving, always true
Always merciful and good, so good

Chorus – repeats

Yahweh, God unchanging
Yahweh, firm foundation (repeats)

Chorus – repeats

You are faithful and we will trust in You
We will trust in You and we will trust in You
We will trust in You

To Listen:    Yesterday, Today and Forever by Vicky Beeching

To Reflect:

We have made it to the end of Lent and wait for the new beginning of Easter Day.  Have you ever felt that Holy Saturday is an odd way to end something?  Yes, I know that later today we will be preparing to greet the dawn but today, for me at least, is a very often a bits-and-pieces kind of day.  There is a shopping list of ‘Thisses and Thats’ which need to be done but mostly life is about tomorrow.  

Sometimes I refer to it as Schrodinger’s Saturday.  We know that when the tomb was closed yesterday it was full but when it opens tomorrow it will be empty.  Today can feel a little bit as if we are ‘full of emptiness’, not quite knowing what to do while we are waiting for God to act.  So what is there to do today?

For the first disciples it was a heavy day.  Being a Sabbath it was a day when the religious laws of the time forbade them from doing what they needed to do.  They needed to prepare spices, they needed to cry, they needed to decide how to pick up the threads of their lives.  They did not, unlike us, know what the future would hold.  They knew they needed to do something but lacked the inspiration to do anything.

Yes, some of the women, those ever faithful but oft-neglected and unnamed women, went about preparing spices for the next day.  But what was that in the after-shock of the events of Golgotha?  And yet, it is these hidden disciples of our Beloved, going about caring for Him as they always had (Luke 8v1-3),  who become apostles to the Apostles.

Is this something we could do with this empty time between death and resurrection?  Get ready for the unknown?  Get ready for the unexpected?  For even though we know what to expect on Easter Day none of us knows what any of our tomorrows will bring.  All we do know is that things will change.  

Vicky sings today;

Yahweh, God unchanging
Yahweh, firm foundation

Our Beloved is the same yesterday, today and forever.  In that knowledge we find the grace and strength to change our own lives regardless of what tomorrow may bring.  Even if, perhaps especially if, we think we know what tomorrow will bring.

How do we prepare for tomorrow and the day after and the one after that?  We copy the faithful women who, though bereft and worn out by tears, did what they would always do and got themselves ready to sit once more at the feet of Jesus with their oils and ointments.  With them we are called to a persistent and practical faith-filled life which looks each night to be with our Beloved at dawn-break.  And, as we fill our emptiness with devotion we too will hear Him call our name from the Garden Tomb

To Pray:

To Do: 

1. Try to have a regular (short) last thing at night prayer time that commits both the darkness and the coming dawn to God.  A helpful place to start might be something like the Office of Night Prayer.
2. Last thing tonight lay out your clothes you will wear for worship tomorrow.  If you have a new Easter outfit to wear, wonderful.  If not try to put on freshly laundered clothes with no ‘leftover dirt’ from the past week on them.

Going Further:

Again, following on from today’s Scripture reading, Handel’s Messiah Calls.  If you have a spare moment on this ‘Empty Saturday’ watch this.

oooOOOooo

If you would like to find out more about Vicky and her work here is a link to her Wikipedia entry.  For a fuller picture her autobiography ‘Undivided’ is highly recommended

Please Note:  These reflections are also published on my blog: suffolkvicarhomes.com  on Bluesky as @suffolkvicar.bsky.social, and on my public Facebook page  Suffolk Vicar – Rev Andrew Dotchin. 

If you would like them as a daily email please send a request to revdotchin@gmail.com

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Acknowledgements:

These Reflections, ‘The Wonder of the Cross – 40 Days with the Music of Vicky Beaching’ are copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2026 and may be reproduced without charge on condition that their source is acknowledged.

All of the music on the video clips are from YouTube and are © Vicky Beeching.  

If you enjoy listening to her songs please consider buying her recordings.  A full discography and other information about Vicky can be found on her website vickybeeching.com.

Scripture quotations are from The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.  Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Prayers are from A Diary of Prayer compiled by Elizabeth Goudge and are copyright © 1966 The Estate of Elizabeth Goudge.