Jehovah’s Witness Memorial Report 4/12/2025

As is my custom (20+ years), I attended the annual Memorial of Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW). Once a year the Witnesses celebrate what most Christians refer to as communion. I’ll give a short summary of what usually happens at this ceremony and then will describe the events of the evening.

Since this is the only religious holiday Jehovah’s Witnesses celebrate, attendance at Kingdom Halls for this service is much like Christmas and Easter is for Christians. If you are associated with the Witnesses in any way, and you could only make one meeting all year, this would be the meeting. Parking lots are usually filled, and everyone wears their Sunday best. The service starts just after sunset. Since there is limited space at Kingdom Halls, sometimes they will rent out public halls or hotel conference rooms. They also have a later meeting at 9:00 to accommodate everyone who wants to attend.

The meeting begins with an announcement for everyone to begin finding their seats. The building is usually packed so they want to make sure everyone is seated before they begin. A respected man (an elder or someone of greater authority), will stand up in front of the audience and give a presentation from a Watchtower supplied outline. The whole service lasts less than an hour and seems to be getting shorter over the last few years. The outline rarely changes from one year to the next. I am so familiar with the content, I could present it myself. Seriously.

The major emphasis of this public address is to prove that 99.9% of JWs do not have the right to partake of the emblems. The speaker will jump from verse to verse in the Bible “proving” the anointed class, numbered at 144,000 members, are the only ones who have the right to partake because they are the only ones who are part of the new covenant.

Compared to the 21.1 million people who attended the event last year, very few Jehovah’s Witnesses partake. Last year there were only 23,212. Since there are roughly one tenth of a percent of Jehovah’s Witnesses who claim to be of the anointed, most Kingdom Halls have no partakers. JWs are STRONGLY counseled against such claims, suggesting they may be suffering from “mental strain” (Watchtower 8/15/96 p. 31), “mental or emotional problems” (Watchtower 1/2016 Study Edition pp.25-26) and “emotional imbalance” (Watchtower 8/15/11 p. 22) if they partake.

So basically, someone will get up and speak about how important it is that Jehovah’s Witnesses attend while emphasizing that practically no one will participate. They will then pass the emblems around, watch everyone reject them, then go home. It seems pointless, but Jehovah’s Witnesses look forward to this evening almost like high school students look forward to prom.

I have to be careful where I attend the Memorial because there have been times when I have recognized by someone. When the Witnesses come into your neighborhood and point at your house as soon as they get out of their car, then avoid your house as they invite all of your neighbors to attend the Memorial, you know you need to attend in another place. My oldest son Daniel decided to join me.

We arrived at the Kingdom Hall in plenty of time before the meeting began. Sometimes it is hard to get seats. Before we got through the door and sat down several people introduced themselves saying they were glad we were there. Many Christian Churches could learn a thing or two by being as welcoming to visitors. The JWs knew we were visitors for two reasons;

1) They are a very closed net group so, even if they don’t know you, you stick out if they don’t recognize you.

2) Neither of us were dressed as Witnesses. They are always dressed in suits and ties for the men and dressed for the ladies. We wore slacks and collared shirts, which is out of the norm for me. I’m a shorts and sandals guy.

Shortly before the service began, a man asked everyone to take their seats. The congregation immediately obeyed as everyone hushed. The meeting started with the singing of song #25, A Special Possession, which according to their current doctrine, is the Watchtower organization. It seems that they always begin with this troubling song. Here are the lyrics.

1. God has a new creation, His spirit-anointed sons. He has bought them from mankind; His approval they’ve won.

(CHORUS) A special possession, They’re a people for your name. They love you. They praise you. As one they declare abroad your fame.

2. They are a holy nation, Who handle the truth aright. God has called them from darkness To his wonderful light.

(CHORUS)

3. Faithful to their commission, They gather the other sheep. To the Lamb they are loyal. His commandments they keep.

(CHORUS)

This song always bothers me. In times past, JWs had their own songbooks, but now in the age of technology, there is something different about seeing the lyrics on the wall. If you notice, pronouns abound in this song. In verse one God identifies His “spirit-anointed sons” and refers to them as “them” and “they’ve” once each. Verse two, “they” and “them” once each. Verse three “they’re” once, and “they” twice. The chorus has one “they’re” and three mentions of “they”. If you count all the pronouns, including the ones in the chorus three times, the anointed have been referred to 19 times.

The song in the JW app has 1^st Peter 2:9 right under the title of the song. Their New World Translation reads, “But you are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for special possession, that you should declare abroad the excellencies’ of the One who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

What strikes me is the end of this verse. The purpose of the “special possession” is to declare the excellencies of God. If this song is based off 1^st Peter 2:9, then why are Jehovah’s Witnesses singing about a specific group of people instead of singing to Jehovah? Why do Jehovah’s Witnesses begin the most important service of their year singing about the Watchtower organization? That bothers me and it should bother anyone who claims to follow Christ.

After the opening prayer and song, the speaker was invited to the podium. The talk is titled “Appreciate what God and Christ has done for you”.  It has been the same talk every year for at least the past 10-15 years. As I previously mentioned, I’m so familiar with the information that I could give the talk myself. Seriously.

The title of the presentation reminds me to start keeping track of the word “appreciate”. Becky noticed their overuse of this word years ago. This year it was mentioned only 11 times. They’re slacking.

The speaker gave some preliminary details about how Jehovah’s Witnesses celebrate this event world-wide and mentioned that last year, there were 21 million people who attended.

 There are four points to the outline.

1) How does Jesus’ death open the way to everlasting life?

2) Who benefit from Jesus’ loving sacrifice?

3) Who partake of the bread and wine?

4) What can we do to show our appreciation?

Before he addressed the first point, he explained that Romans 5:19 says Adam’s disobedience made us sinners, while the obedience of Jesus can make us righteous. That leads to the two greatest acts of love. The first being that Jehovah sent Jesus to die for our sins as per John 3:16. The second greatest act of love was the willingness of Jesus to die in our place. He death was equal to what Adam lost.

I’ve pointed this out before, but according to John 15:13 the greatest act of love is for someone to give their life for someone else, not send someone else to do it. Does Jesus love us more than Jehovah does? More on that later.

As the speaker progressed through his Watchtower provided outline, he quickly bounced from one out of context verse to another. He seemed nervous, which would be out of character for an elder. Most of his time was spent on point three, “Who partake?”.

Watchtower doctrine currently teaches that only 144,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses go to heaven to rule with Jesus. Everyone else (the great crowd) will have the opportunity to live on paradise earth forever, but only after they pass a 1,000-year test. Satan is let loose after the millennium and tempts mankind one last time. Those who fail this final test are annihilated. There is no hell.

Only the anointed are allowed to partake and God would be displeased if anyone else did because they wouldn’t be deserving. He actually used that word, “deserving”. The disingenuous part of this doctrine is that they hold the anointed up on a pedestal (evidenced by the fact that the opening hymn praises them as God’s special possession), while trying to convince the Great Crowd that they are no less valuable. No less valuable but forbidden to partake, will not be in heaven, are not part of the New Covenant, do not have Jesus as their mediator, are not born again, and will not rule with Jesus. If the Great Crowd were less valuable, how would it look any different?

After making point three in the outline, another man came forward to pray before the bread was distributed, which is passed from one person to another without anyone partaking. I always look around to see if anyone does. I had my eye on one particular young man who came into the kingdom hall shortly before the meeting started.

He was a 20ish Hispanic man in jeans, a buttoned-down shirt and, and wearing a Cowboy hat. He came in with a young lady and another young man. What caught my eye though was his Bible. It didn’t look like the Jehovah’s Witness mistranslation. It looked legit. During the opening prayer the three of them held hands, something I’ve never seen JWs do in a service. The three of them were a few rows in front of us. “Cowboy” was sitting on the end of a row like I was. During the prayer, Cowboy bowed his head and held out his right hand, palm up, like many Christians do in a posture of prayer. Because of these things, I wondered if he was going to partake of the emblems, but when the bread came to them, none of them did.

When the plate got close to us, I noticed that Daniel had his phone near his chest. He held it so as not to be noticed. I thought he was going to take a picture of the plate and that’s when something happened that has never happened before. Usually, the plate has some sort of cloth napkin on it and the bread is placed on that. Not this time. The wafers were placed on a porcelain-like that was plate as slick as snot.

During our handoff, I accidentally tipped the plate too far and 3/4ths of the unleavened bread slid off the plate, bounced off our seats, and hit the floor. I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t loud by any stretch of the imagination, but because of how quiet the room is at that time, it did make enough noise that the people around us knew what happened. Here is the video.

I felt so embarrassed! Because I was on the end of the row, the attendant was standing right next to me. He was very gracious and said, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll clean it up later.” After the attendant moved down a few rows, Daniel showed me his phone. He didn’t take a picture of the bread, he video recorded the failed exchange. I had a hard time focusing from then on.

Even though I was thoroughly mortified, I did find it funny. I’ve got my right ankle crossed over my left knee so I can balance my iPad in my lap, my cane is hanging off my right ankle, and I’m dropping symbolic cracker-Jesus onto the floor. The thought hit me; “What difference did it make? They weren’t going to eat the bread anyway.” I seriously had to pray the giggles away.

 After praying over the wine, they passed the cup. Sure enough, Daniel has his phone up again. I began to wonder what would happen if the attendant noticed him then thinking I dumped the plate on purpose. When I took the cup from Daniel, I whispered, “Two Hands” loud enough for the attendant to hear it. He grinned as I gave the cup to him with just as much wine in it as when it was handed to me.

Their ending song was the same one they’ve been singing for years. Song #18, Grateful for the Ransom. The lyrics are;

1. Today, Jehovah God, we stand before your throne, For you showed the greatest love that could ever be shown. You gave the gift of your dear Son, that we might live. No greater sacrifice than this could you ever give.

(CHORUS) He gave his life to set us free. His precious blood provides the key. With all our hearts, we’ll go on thanking you eternally.

2.It was a willing sacrifice that Jesus made. Out of love, his perfect life was the price that he paid. We had no hope until he came to save mankind. But now our hope is finding life, leaving death behind.

(CHORUS)

Here we go again. Why is Jehovah sending Jesus to die a greater act of love than Jesus volunteering to die for others? There are problems with this song that Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t understand. First, it isn’t scriptural according to John 15:13.

Second, If John 15:13 is correct, does that mean that Jesus loves us more than Jehovah does? I’ve never received a good answer to that question. It doesn’t make sense that the greatest act of love looks like, “Hey Jesus, I love these people so much that I want YOU to die for them. As a trinitarian, John 15:13 poses no problem for me.

It is truly troubling that the two songs they sing are about the anointed as God’s special possession and thanking God for Jesus’ sacrifice. Granted, Jesus is mentioned, but no praise is directed towards Him. Since prayer is an act of worship and JWs are forbidden to worship Jesus, I’ve wondered what JW prayers would look like if they thought about Him and His sacrifice during prayer. “Dear Jehovah, we thank you for your sacrifice of sending Your son to die for our sins. Can you pass our thanks along to Jesus too?”

After the service was over, people began taking pictures of themselves in front of emblems. This has been happening in recent years. It is weirdly awkward. It reminds me of soldiers who take pictures of themselves over the dead bodies of their enemies. Why would someone take a picture of themselves in front of the bread and wine they are forbidden to take? It is almost as if they are saying, “Hey, hey. Look at me. I’m nicely dressed, but I’m not part of the New Covenant. Yippee!”

I looked for Cowboy in hopes of getting to talk to him, but he was quickly engaged in conversation with a few JWs. As it turned out, the young lady he was with was raised as a JW but fell away for a while. She is starting to get associated again and invited him to attend.

We waited for his conversation to end, but they were going strong. We decided to go up front and get our own Passover picture. We had to stand there for 10 minutes or so because of the other people taking pictures. An 70ish older lady approached us and began to tell us about how she used to be a Baptist and converted to being a Jehovah’s Witness. I enjoyed talking with her and thought she would be a good person to study with. Since JW women will not meet with a man on her own, I asked if her husband was around. She didn’t know where he was but pointed to Speaker-guy and said he would be a good person to talk to.

I wasn’t crazy about that, so Daniel and I continued to wait for Cowboy. As God would have it, Speaker-guy went over to talk to Cowboy. I thought, “There’s my in.” We walked over to Speaker-guy, waited for a break in the conversation, then I said I was told to come talk to him. He was pleased and got my phone number.

As God would have it… again, our conversation ended right at the same time Cowboy’s conversation ended with other JWs. We headed toward the door together, so I asked him about his Bible. It was a New Living Translation. He explained that it was different than “our” Bible. When I told him I wasn’t a JW, he was surprised. I was trying to figure out a way to get his contact information without looking like a creepy old guy with a cane. I asked him which Church he attended. When he answered, “CBC”, Daniel’s jaw dropped.

There’s my in… again. I told him that I was a member there for 29 years and that Daniel still goes there. He is on the rotation as a drummer with the worship team. When I explained that, I said, “You should check out his Instagram. He puts up some of his drumming videos.” They immediately exchanged profiles.

Overall, the meeting seemed shorter, but it was not without its uncanny incidents. I even got a book out of it. During my research on an unrelated subject during the week, I came across a quote found in a book I didn’t know about. I have access to all of their material electronically, but it is always good to have a physical copy for my library. That way I can point out any changes that may be made in the future.

Please keep Cowboy and Speaker-guy in your prayers. I hope to continue in conversation with them.