Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

If you are reading this before 6 p.m. on Saturday, February 1, then you’re in luck! It means you still have time to tune into WWE’s Royal Rumble, broadcast live on Peacock. And believe me, if you can watch it, you don’t want to miss it.

The Royal Rumble is a spectacle like no other. 30 wrestlers compete for a guaranteed World Championship match at WrestleMania. One by one, in 90-second intervals, wrestlers enter the ring and can only be eliminated by being thrown over the top rope. There are no pinfalls, submissions or count-outs. If you want to survive, to come out on top, then you’ll have to evade capture and muster all your strength to eliminate everybody else before you find yourself being thrown headfirst onto the concrete.

The Royal Rumble is like a wrestling match on, well, steroids. It’s beautiful chaos within the ring, and all there is to do for people like you and me is to sit back, eat some popcorn, and cheer as loudly as we can.

The Royal Rumble is more than just entertainment, though. It’s more than just sport. It’s the enactment of what it means to struggle through life while trying to find meaning and purpose.

It’s always a joy to watch over-confident wrestlers be eliminated while actively celebrating their own in-match triumphs. That’s real life. How many times have you felt like you had life almost under control when something surprises you and crushes you with its strength? How often have you been suddenly surprised by tragedy or calamity and had to admit that your hopes and dreams have drifted away from you like vapor on the wind?

The Rumble shows us what is required if we are to make it through life, getting our own WrestleMania moment. What is required is a steely determination to endure in the face of whatever suffering comes our way. What is needed is a cunning observance of the world around us so that we aren’t caught unaware by unavoidable pain. What is essential is the conscious decision to persevere until the very end so that our hand is raised in victory.

What gives you the strength to endure the Rumble of everyday life? What do you turn to when you need an extra shot of spiritual or mental adrenaline? For me, I turn to the love of my wife, my friends, and the companionship of Jesus of Nazareth. Your sources of strength are bound to be different. No matter. What’s important is that, in a world of pain like ours, you seek and find that which gives you strength to endure whatever comes your way.

Like Cody Rhodes, who outlasted 29 others last year to get his WrestleMania match (which he won!), dig deeply into your wells of life and cling to whatever gives you the strength to persevere, surviving whatever 2025 brings your way.

Chris Adams is the Rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Washington