There is one television show every red-blooded, bonafide, adolescent American male has probably seen at least once in their lives and that is some form of what is usually referred to as "professional wrestling."  If you've ever seen it, you know the scenario: one (or sometimes teams of two) bulked-up testosterone-heavy males go at it in (and, at times, out of) a boxing ring, snarling and grimacing, applying absolutely outrageous acts of violence to each other (and threatening to do so to the audience as well); maneuvers such as head butting, lifting and throwing each other's bodies onto the floor, and rib kicking, not to mention the gratuitous and ubiquitous slamming of a steel folding chair right on the opponent's body.  This "entertainment" is especially popular with 14-year old boys and their "male-bonding" fathers.  Women are too smart to waste their time with such things.

But, in truth, everyone knows that if such activity were in any way authentic, such "professional wrestlers" would kill themselves within minutes.  In other words, what the viewer experiences is actually highly choreographed and well-timed dance movements where one slip could actually result in real harm.  Yet our lives are full of real moments of wrestling that are not fake "entertainment" at all: family members dying, career transitions, loss of income, failing health, faith shot through with doubt and dread.  At such times, it is extremely helpful to remember we are not in the ring alone, but with a divine partner who will somehow turn our battle into a victory, who will fill our hunger, and who will bless us even as we suffer and bear the marks of the real wrestling just being alive entails.

 

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

 

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.