by raymond frantz 16 Replies latest watchtower bible
"'twas Nisan 14 when your glory was seen...."
Man, talk about Vogon poetry! 😱😳🙄
Scuttlebutt amongst us mainstream Christians in the 80s was that JWs would answer "Yes" if you asked them if they were born again, presumably to deflect from certain arguments.
I suspect they will still state that this may very well be the LAST time we have such a gathering in this system of things.
SAME SHIT, DIFFERENT DAY (Year)
How things have changed.
As a kid in the 60s the "anointed" were old, frumpy, rare birds with their heads in the clouds. They got annual questionnaires asking for opinions from HQ. 1st gen and I both had one of these rare pre-1930s JWs in our big extended JW families. They died years ago.
Watchtower has since troted out "annointed 2.0. " Now they are more common, younger than us, sporting expensive duds, bling, and have nice digs. They are not waiting for heaven...they already have it.
My pet peeve about the memorial is their obsession with just once a year and it has to correspond with Nisan 14 as the same as the passover night. Then if you miss it you do it one month later per the law of Moses. Jesus said nothing about this. He just said "do this often in remembrance of me". I think Wt. has it all wrong about frequency and when it's to be celebrated. I think the concept of the Catholic Mass is overdoing it with frequency. If done too often it loses its importance, but once a year is too infrequently. I'm not up on how often Protestant denominations do it. I'm sure it varies from one church to the next. Google AI says some do it every Sunday, or monthly or quarterly.
My pet peeve about the memorial is their obsession with just once a year and it has to correspond with Nisan 14 as the same as the passover night. Then if you miss it you do it one month later per the law of Moses. Jesus said nothing about this.
It's called Pesach Sheni or Second Passover. It is the law in the Torah in reference to those who may be ritually impure or due to travel who cannot "offer the Passover sacrifice on that day," not about people who cannot simply partake of the meal.--Numbers 9:6,11.
Someone had to be ritually impure, meaning they could not legally approach the altar of Jehovah to offer a sacrifice. This is speaking about slaughtering the Passover lamb on Nisan 14, Preparation Day:
When any of you or of your posterity who are defiled by a corpse or are on a long journey would offer a Passover sacrifice to the Lord, they shall offer it in the second month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight.--Numbers 9:10-11a.
Once the sun sets and it goes dark another day and another festival began, Nisan 15, the Festival of Unleavened Bread. This observance was not a sacrifice but a communion meal.
The Jewish holiday of Passover actual grew out of two ancient festivals, one of the shepherding people that included a sacrifice to divinity and another of the farming community that offered the best of the remaining of last season's wheat harvest in the form of unleavened cakes. They seem to be side-by-side for a series of reasons, including the fact that the Jews used to employ a solar calendar before the Babylonian Exile and then adopted the lunar calendar, and the fact that both communities likely took advantage of celebrating under the light of the full moon.
When the Levitical priesthood retrofitted the Jewish holidays to teach lessons about the Exodus, including the Festival of Booths which was originally a harvest/ingathering festival, the Lamb and Unleavened Bread become symbols of one feast (this is why it is confusing to read the accounts in Exodus on when to observe Passover--"between the two evenings"). By the time of the Second Temple period, as recorded by Josephus, the system of slaughtering lambs for Passover on Nisan 14 was so systematic that tens of thousands went through the Herod's Temple between the Preparation Day hours of 12 pm to 3 pm.
I think the concept of the Catholic Mass is overdoing it with frequency. If done too often it loses its importance, but once a year is too infrequently.
Christians began observing the Lord's Evening Meal weekly, the day after the Sabbath (Sunday). This was because it was forbidden for Jews to travel on the Sabbath itself or to congregate for secular meetings, thus Jewish Christians could not do so outside of worship at the Temple or in synagogues.
The "Mass" is based on the Jewish Liturgy, including the Jewish readings of the Scriptures which follows a yearly cycle. Christians added readings from writings of the Apostles and texts called the Gospels. Afterwards they celebrated what Justin Martyr (c 100-165 CE), one of the Church Fathers, called the "Eucharist."
Justin Martyr wrote one of the earliest accounts about what weekly Christian worship was like. While it does not align with what everything that Catholics now believe about Communion or line up with everything they do, it is where they inherited the basic structure of their worship services. And it was each and every Sunday.
Protestant denominations vary in their practice based on simple autonomy. Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy inherit their practice, meaning they must have some historical precedence for what they do that they can point to (which they call Tradition). "Unless the Church of the past did it..." Protestants claim there must be something written in a Scripture text before they do it. "Unless the Bible says so..." And thus the difference in practice.
Some years ago the Memorial talk was completely changed. From that time on there has been no mention of Nisan 14 and the Israelites in Egypt, killing the lamb, sprinkling the blood etc. The complete Passover part was removed. Even the song, "'twas Nisan 14 when your glory was seen...." was removed and substituted with another.
Can anyone remember the year this change took place? I never heard any explanation as to why the change but just assumed they had discovered they were celebrating on the wrong after all.
George
I can't remember WHEN it was done, but yes I remember that. It struck me at the time that it was "dumbing down" the message (little did I know then how much more was going to come down the line), especially as the Memorial is the first time many get to learn about "the ransom" and how significant it was, and how it linked right back to promises and acts of God from centuries before.
The Memorial songs back then seemed more dignified too, and they were uplifting, rousing songs, especially the second, which usually ended the meeting. One was about the meal itself, one about Jesus Christ.
"The Lord’s Evening Meal": [jworg] /en/library/books/Sing-Praises-to-Jehovah-Small-Size/The-Lords-Evening-Meal/
"Hail Jehovah's Firstborn": [jworg] /en/library/books/Sing-Praises-to-Jehovah-Small-Size/Hail-Jehovahs-Firstborn/
Then they put in two awful dirges of songs for a few years, now recently they've changed them again to one about the anointed as a "special possession" (which wouldn't be so bad if the GB hadn't also planted themselves in the forefront as being the ONLY spokesmen for that entire group) and another which, admittedly, is about being "grateful for the ransom" and does include lyrics acknowledging Jesus' willing sacrifice, but is a less memorable and rousing song than they used to end with.
They used to refer to the fact that at the end of the "Lord's evening meal", Matthew and Mark say Jesus and the eleven "sang songs of praise" before going out into the night, so a rousing song seemed a good way to end what should really be a joyful commemoration, because of what it stood for.
My pet peeve about the memorial is their obsession with just once a year and it has to correspond with Nisan 14 as the same as the passover night.
I have no problem with that at all. It seems perfectly reasonable. The Passover was an annual event. The "last supper" was held on a Passover, and so it's logical that when Jesus said "keep doing this in remembrance of me", to hold it annually.
For centuries and across most of the earth, "remembrances" are generally annual: birthdays, wedding and death anniversaries, commemorations of significant world events. For example, in the UK and Commonwealth countries, the event called "Remembrance Day" marking the sacrifice of armed forces personnel in conflicts is observed annually on 11th November, in commemoration of the ending of WWI on 11/11/18. So an annual event seems perfectly reasonable to me for both practical and scriptural reasons.
I think the concept of the Catholic Mass is overdoing it with frequency.
Now that, I do agree with. Daily or weekly or even multiple times a day seems overkill, and easily loses the significance of the event. Given the parallel with the Passover and the calendar (whether solar or lunar), annual seems most sensible. Of course, there is a debate of which "year" it should be held according to, but again, reasonably, I would say it should be according to the calendar used by the nation of Israel at the time Jesus was on earth. I'm no expert on that, and I believe the JWs don't always get that calculation right, but they are one of the few organisations claiming to be Christian who seem at least to be trying to align their observation to the original conditions.
Now they are more common, younger than us, sporting expensive duds, bling, and have nice digs. They are not waiting for heaven...they already have it.
No one partaking where we attended, but the description above sure is accurate. The old guys (my peers) were all just attendants passing the crackers & juice and the whole show was run by the younger generation (40's). And they all are looking good! Nice cars. Nice clothes. A Louis V bag caught my eye.
No one looked like they were "doing without" in order to pioneer. They are all still uttering the company line that "The End is Near" but I don't think they really are living like they believe it.
