The Heroes Series — Caedmon

April 3, 2008, 11:30 am; posted by
Filed under Articles, David, Featured, Heroes  | 1 Comment

Read the first in the series!

Caedmon was a 7th-century cowherd in Saxon England. During gatherings at the abbey which employed him, it was a common form of merrymaking in the evening to pass around the lute and take turns making up frivolous songs in the easy, alliterative style of rhyming popular at the time. As the lute drew nearer and nearer to Caedmon, he became more and more distressed, and finally, as his turn arrived, he quickly left the house and retired to his bed in the stable, where he cast himself down in misery.

Suddenly there appeared to him a vision of Jesus saying, “Caedmon, sing.”

“I cannot sing,” was the melancholy reply. “That is why I came out here.”

“But you will sing to me,” Jesus replied.

“What shall I sing?”

“You will sing of all created things.”

The next day an amazing transformation took place as Caedmon went to the Abbey and had the abbess read to him from the Scriptures. He then began to sing the story of Creation. With all of Europe lying in spiritual darkness, Caedmon began to put the Bible into the language of the common English-speaking people.

Caedmon became a voice to his generation; his writings became seminal resources for the eventual English translations of Wycliffe and Tyndale. This was Caedmon\’s call, and although I have no confirmation, it must be the origin of the name for the Christian band, Caedmon’s Call.

I stumbled across this account in a book called How We Got Our English Bible, and I have been challenged ever since by thoughts like, “What can I do to be a voice for my generation, a voice to my culture? What excuses do I have? What deficiencies can He turn to His glory?”

We never know until we open our mouth — or pick up a pen — how God may use us.


Comments

1 Comment to “The Heroes Series — Caedmon”

  1. jeff on April 8th, 2008 2:49 pm

    Yes, it was definitely where the band got its name.

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