Sunday sermon: Prepare the path

Oct 13, 2013, 9:00 AM

We'll start in the Book of Isaiah: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."

Sons of Clemson, we are here. You don't need to have me stand up here and flap my gums about the importance of Saturday's game any more than Joshua needed to tell his trumpeters to tune up before Jericho.

Destiny rides the wind, until it is written in stone...

This weekend is everything the past has pointed to. It is everything the future will look back on. This is where the destiny of the Sons of Clemson will be carved in stone for generations yet unborn to see.

What do you want that stone to say? It is up to us to do the writing. I believe it will be a song of triumph, carried on the choir of 83,000 voices into the cool evening air.

If you have ANY doubt, then get your heart right. Get your spirit right. Fast or drink, but when you come into the Valley Saturday DO NOT come with the "realist" mindset.

Remember not the former things, the things of old. The Clemson-ing, the "can't win the big game", all of it. I stand before you, as Sons of Clemson, to claim that promise.

We are Clemson. We are walking a new path. The walk may not always be smooth, but it continues to lead upward.

Awww, c'mon Clemson! Lose one like the good old days!

Two years ago, yesterday's game would have been our ##### game....and a likely loss. Behold the ways of the old path, the "yeah, but," the "old realism."

Now it's a double-digit win. This is the new path, a path cleared with blood and pain and belief that the view from the mountaintop will be worth the labor.

This weekend, the path is blocked by a boulder the size of a Gamecock's ego in the path. If we are truly who we claim to be, the time has come to clear the path. Don't just roll the stone aside and slip by.

Sons of Clemson, if you want all talk of "Clemsoning" to cease, if you want the world to know that all things are new ... that stone must be destroyed, pulled apart like the false idols of Babylon and cast aside.

How'd the game at Clemson go? Don't ask!

Rip the chains that bind Clemson to any memory of that past and wrap them around the throats of our would-be captors. There can be no easing up, no taking the boot from the throat. Keep stomping until the Tomahawk Chop is just a faint gurgling of surrender and pain.

I am here to tell you that we ARE going to win Saturday night. We ARE going to reclaim the crown, and when the carnage has ceased, we will pluck the last feather from Osceola's battered headdress and wave it above our heads during the alma mater.

All will be held accountable Saturday. And all will share in the triumph. We are ready, Sons of Clemson. Crush the stones of the past and prepare the path.

We will follow.