This was a 350kms day, starting out in Órgiva through Lanjaron (west gate to the Alpujarras), up to Granada, on to Jaen and La Carolina / Las Navas de Tolosa then to Córdoba. Granada – the last kingdom to surrender and clearly a city with an impressive history. We will revisit Granada at another time, connecting there with people of the land. This time we parked up (losing a hub cap on the way on the cobbled streets!) and climbed up to the central Mosque. Obviously, and understandably, seen as a symbolic achievement by those of the Islamic faith. What a challenge… freedom of religion? It is very provocative to realise that there is no physical level battle but our warfare is heavenly, and challenging to think of the NT context where faith in Jesus was for so long a miority belief in the public arena.
We were in Cordoba by the end of the day and the next morning. This is truly an impressive city, modern and a clear place of learning. In history the development of literature and study there was right at the forefront within the world of the middle ages. Cordoba was one of the first mega cities of its time. Something of this is still in the city. The gifting is there and evident.
We had a very moving morning in the Cathedral – or in the Mosque? The Cathedral took over the Mosque, so it is known as the Mesquita-Catedral. Beautiful and truly awe-inspiring. What a place to unravel our string! (From Lugo where we began this journey, May 21, where we bought a roll of string saying that something was unravelling from Lugo to Gibraltar, and we have slowly unravelled it as we have prayed.) So in the Cathedral there had to be an unravelling and that is what we did.
The pivot point of the day though was in going to the battle field of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) and the monument at La Carolina.
The scale of it and the symbolism really are an abomination. A bag of salt was deposited all around it and a strong renunciation. This distortion of the cross is what disempowers the cross. At the cross Jesus was stripped bare and made an open show of – the result Paul tells us was that the powers were exposed and stripped of their power! So offensive to have the cross at the centre as the weapon used against others.
The battle brought together four kings who despite their differences aligned, volunteers also from France, and three orders of religious knight orders, including the Knights Templars and the Order or Santiago (the ‘Moor killer’). It is probably no great surprise that we discovered when travelling to Toledo that the returning forces then turned on and massacred many Jews in the city.
When one talks about repentance over what has been done to Jews in the name of Jesus there is often a glad response – even from those who do not grasp ‘Identificational repentance’. Bringing up the issue of repentance to Muslims and touching on that history does not bring about the same glad response, in fact it is sadly often met with resistance. The privilege to stand in these places and feel something of the heart of God to embrace one and all is huge. It is then an offence when so much of what is on the land today betrays the God of heaven. For that repentance is both necessary and an easy step to make. It is not simply that Muslims have a long memory – the land does, and it needs healing so that another story can be written rather than one that changes characters but the script stays the same.