Job 38:32

Pointers

The Bear with her train. Job 38:32

We all know a pointer when we see it, don't we? It is a long slender piece of wood which our teachers use to show us places on the map, or point out words or figures on the blackboard. Yes, but the school pointer is only one kind of pointer, and any of you who think a moment will be able to tell me of many more. There are, for instance, the signposts at the cross-roads with their long outstretched arms pointing to the different roads; there is the pointed hand with the sticking-out first finger which shows the way to any special place or object; there is the weathercock on the steeple which points in the direction from which the wind blows; there are the hands of the clock which point to the hours and the minutes; and last, but not least, there is the magnetic needle of the compass which always points to the north.

Well, the pointers of which we are going to speak this morning are older than any of these pointers. The chances are that they are older than the world itself. For thousands, perhaps millions, of years they have pointed steadily to the same object, and for thousands of years to come they will point to it still.

They are such important pointers that they each have a name. These names sound rather odd, but here they are, and this is how you spell them! D-u-b-h-e, Dubhe; and M-e-r-a-k, Merak. Have you guessed them yet? Though you may not know them by their names you know them well by sight. You must have noticed them many times shining up in the sky, for they are the two stars in the blade of the “Plough” which always point to the Pole Star. They are the compass of the sky.

You know what the “Plough” is like. It is a cluster of seven stars. Three of them form the handle of the plough, and four form the blade. The two which form the front part of the blade farthest away from the handle are our friends with the strange names.

Now the “Plough” is part of a constellation or cluster of stars known as the “Great Bear.” The three handle stars are the Bear's tail, and the four blade stars are part of the Bear's body. You may have seen pictures of the various groups of stars showing the people and animals they were supposed to resemble. From these they received their names. As far as we know it was the Chaldeans, five thousand years ago, who first named and studied the stars. At any rate by the time of Job this particular cluster was known as the “Bear,” and when our text speaks of God guiding “the Bear with her train” it just means that God guides the stars that form that constellation the train being the tail stars.

Different nations have given the “Great Bear” different names, according to the pictures they fancied it formed. The Greeks called it “a chariot”; and the ancient Gauls named it “Arthur's Chariot”; while our own forefathers spoke of it as the “Churl's Wain” that is to say, the peasant's waggon, now corrupted into “Charles' Wain.” The Americans call it the “Dipper,” because they think that the part we know as the “Plough” is shaped like a ladle and so it is.

But the “Great Bear” is not the only bear. There is a “Little Bear” as well; and the bright star in the very tip of the “Little Bear's” tail is to the sailor or the traveler the most important star in all the sky, for it shines always in the north, and from it they can find their way. Indeed, before the compass was invented the stars were all that men had to guide them. By studying the map of the sky they found their way on the map of the world.

We have got rather far away from our friends Dubhe and Merak, but now we are coming back to them. The marvelous thing about them is that though the “Great Bear” changes its place and circles round the Pole Star, these pointers, no matter where they may be, always point straight to the Pole Star. Other stars and other constellations may come and go, but if the sky is clear and the stars are shining, there you will see the North Star and its faithful pointers.

Now, I wonder how you would like to be a pointer star? It sounds a far-away sort of business, doesn't it? and a cold one too on a frosty winter night! But there is no need for you to climb up into the sky in order to be a pointer. You can be a pointer here on earth; and you can point to a star more splendid than any that ever shone in the heavens. You can point to the Star of all the worlds, Christ Himself.

You remember that when Christ came a beautiful star appeared and stood over the inn at Bethlehem; but the Baby that lay in the manger was greater than the star that shone over Him. He was the Star of stars, the Star that was to bring peace and hope and love into this dark world. And we older people and you boys and girls can be pointers to that Star. With God's help we can always keep true and faithful to Christ. We can live and love and work and pray, so that looking at us the world will say, “There is one who points us to Christ.”