Memorial Musings

undercover

A few things noticed in last night’s annual, ‘Jesus who? Gathering’:

1: Only one scripture from the Gospels was read or cited. One. As in, ‘it’s the loneliest number ‘. The rest were from 1 Corinthians, Revelation and Isaiah.

2. ‘Isaiah?’ you ask… Yes, a good portion of the Memorial talk was an infomercial for the paradise earth that you, yes you in attendance, can enjoy forever… if you call this number today… or something like that.

3. The words, ‘Faithful Discreet Slave Class’ were not mentioned…at all.

4. The 144,000 is still a literal number. They are the Little Flock and Anointed. And only their remnant should partake.

5. The number of partakers from last year was not cited. Not even referenced. They did mention how many attended. Whooppeee.

6. The speaker was a Bethel elder, visiting the area. He gave a new illustration to show how meaningful the ransom sacrifice is. Say you were diagnosed with a terminal illness but could not afford the medical procedure to save your life, no matter how much you pooled yours, your families, your friends, etc, resources together. Without that procedure you would die ( I wondered if that procedure involved blood transfusions but I digress). But along comes a single benefactor to pay for everything in order that you could have that procedure and live. What a loving thing to do. And that relates to what leads me to the next point…

7. A paraphrase from the speaker at the end of his illustration, ‘what a sacrifice that…’ wait for it… No. Not Jesus. Don’t think ahead now. ‘What a sacrifice that Jehovah made in sending his son to die in order pay that ransom’. Wait. What? What about the guy who actually did the dying? The guy that gave up his cushy cloud in heaven and slummed it down here with lowly humans for 33 years and then had to give himself up for sacrifice? Wow. And this is supposed to be a Memorial for him after all.

8. Overall, most people seemed to be in good spirits, friendly, etc. But yet, and this is hard to describe… there seemed to be an emptiness behind their smiles and eyes. I know that most are sincere in their faith, but do they know real happiness from what they are told is happiness? People I've known for decades have not changed (except older and heavier)... at all. They act the same, think the same, behave the same as they always have. Nothing new or exciting. It's a bit surreal. Are they programmed to ‘think’ they’re happy? Is this like a bad B-grade sci-fi movie? Instead of Westworld, is this JW-world? Robots trained to behave a certain way.

9. Overall, I've noticed that the talk is more dumbed down than ever. Very little about Jesus' life. Nothing about his ministry. Nothing about his arrest and trial. Less mention of Adam this year. Just enough to say, 'Adam lost perfect life. Jesus' died as a ransom'. No explanation in detail. It's like the Cliff notes of what a Memorial should have been. The rest of the talk was about who does, and doesn't partake and how great a paradise earth is and what we need to do get there.

10. And finally - the speaker alluded to, and it was quick, the fact that we could live to see the end of this system and live through to the paradise. He didn't dwell on it. It was so quick it was almost subliminal. Yet, it was there. Dangling that 'live forever' carrot is part of their M.O. still

BluesBrother

Yes....that was about it here ,too. Your speaker and mine obviously had the same outline and stuck to it rigidly with no individualism.

The people were friendly and in good spirits, the hall had more people than normal but not packed out..We came, we listened, we left and that was about it. Ho hum (yawn)

villagegirl

And they don't mention Jesus own words, "This is my body" "This is my blood" ?

1 Corinthians 12:27
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

1 Corinthians 10:16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks

a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a

participation in the body of Christ?

At this non-memorial ? No mention of , the body of Christ ?

piztjw

Exactly the same thing where I am. Evidently a pre-approved, cookie-cutter outline saying what they were told to say.

The only exception was the illustration. The guy here used car insurance. Because someone else wrecks their car, your rates along with everyone else's go up to a cost you can no longer afford. Along comes some rich person and says they will pay your rates for the rest of your life. Oh happy,happy, joy, joy!

Some of the comments I heard later at the post memorial party were:

1. I didn't understand some of the new talk. It was over my head, but I just let it go in one ear and out the other.

2. Brother ------ sure wasn't on his game tonight. He stumbled over a lot of the basics in the talk.

3. This memorial was sure different. What happened?

One of my personal memorial musings is that the 144,000 literal number will be tossed sooner or later. The "little flock" will be just the hand chosen appostles, the "other sheep" will be the annointed of an undetermined number, and the "great crowd" will be those believed to be earthly live forever's.

Hoping4Change

There seemed to be a strong emphasis on 'the number of partakers should be small now' idea where I went.

undercover

They did read from 1 Corinthians... Right before passing each emblem

But Corinthians is not part of the gospels... Supposed first hand accounts (if you believe in the Bible) of the apostles who lived along side Jeseus and witnessed his ministry and death.

Jon Preston

Like Terry says in his book: Once a year Jehovahs Witnesses gather to NOT take communion lol

i missed the scripture where millions of people should just watch as anointed partake...in fact, i miss ANY reference to this second class of Christians anywhere in the Gospel...Funny, surely if they made up the majority of the "earthly organization" Jesus would certainly have been compelled to mention it, as it would otherwise create divisions and confusion among his followers...hm

nowwhat?

the outline was better than last year, when they spent half the time explaining the ground rules as to who should partake. anyway the speaker spoke how the bible gives us 2 destinies. so 1st he reads rev 7 about the 144,000 and then reads from the old testament of isaiah. i'm sorry but if i'm a vistitor that is used to taking communion, i would have been thinking "huh?"

respectful_observer

They did read from 1 Corinthians... Right before passing each emblem

But Corinthians is not part of the gospels... Supposed first hand accounts (if you believe in the Bible) of the apostles who lived along side Jeseus and witnessed his ministry and death.

Early on in the talk, our speaker directed us to Luke 22:19 and began reading. When he stopped at the end of v. 20, my SO leans over and whispers "Guess he needed to stop before he got the verse about Judas being there", and smiled. Later on when the speaker directed us to the verses to be read while the emblems were passes, my SO leans over again and says "yeah, because why would we want to read it from the Gospels?" and proceeded to look at the Matt - John accounts, while the speaker read from 1 Cor.

Brother Mike

That's the exact talk and illustration used at our meeting too. Afterward they read a letter putting a free plug on the jw.org website, and as soon as the elder said jw.org, he paused as if he was shocked or surprised he was told to tell everyone there to visit the website for questions. Made me sick to my stomach. Must have made him too. You know what was even funny about this is that it was my brother giving the memorial talk.

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