Words by Colonel Jostein Nielsen.
We have just moved again. Not very far this time. Our new apartment is approximately 3 km away from where we have lived for the past 2,5 years. In addition, I have moved office – I carried my stuff across to the other side of the corridor.
I am moving because of moves in our movement. Christianity is not a religion; it is a motion, a movement. Therefore, The Salvation Army is first and foremost a movement that sets people in motion.
We know that there is motion in the world; whatever is in motion is moved by another thing; this other thing also must be moved by something. For Thomas Aquinas (1) this developed into one of his philosophical arguments for God’s existence. Because motion takes place there must have been a ‘first mover’ and for Aquinas this ‘first mover’ is God. Since God is infinite, Aquinas consider him as the ‘immovable mover’.
So, when we chose the Latin word ‘Momentum’ as our motto, it is to remind us about the fact that Christians are supposed to be moving on the impulse from the first mover – every day! What this means in practical terms, I will elaborate on in my blog once a week.
So how did it start?
The Creation-story tells us that the earth was formless, empty and in darkness:
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Gen 1:3
What a move! This was not the creation of the sun. This was God placing himself in the middle of his creation. The first mover had moved. The first motion had begun. John captured this in his writings: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all (2), and in prologue of the gospel where he described the coming of the Word, he wrote: In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind(3).
‘Manna’ for today
Let us live, move and have our being in the light and the life of the first mover. (4)
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(1) Tommaso d’Aquino was an Italian Dominican Friar who lived from 1225 to 1274.
(2) 1 John 1:5
(3) John 1:4
(4) Acts 17:28
Words Col. Jostein Nielsen