Will There Be Chocolate in Heaven?

(photo: Credit: Bin im Garten, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

A five-year-old boy was having “The Talk” with his dad for the first time. “When a husband and wife really love one another,” explained the father, “they want to be really close together...”

The boy listened wide-eyed as his father explained how a man and a woman could marry and come together as one, and how God could bless their love by giving them a child. Sex didn't seem like something he'd want any part of, unless... unless....

Wait! Could the spouses EAT CHOCOLATE during intimacy? The boy didn't care much about that “coming together” part, but if there was chocolate involved, he'd go along with it. Chocolate would make anything—even the strangest behaviors—seem worthwhile.

C.S. Lewis first told a version of that story in his 1947 book Miracles. In it, he explained that our sense of loss, upon learning that there is no sex in heaven, is akin to that small boy's disappointment when he learns that sexual intimacy does not involve ingestion of large amounts of chocolate. The boy simply doesn't understand that in foregoing one thing (the chocolate), he makes way in his life for something much better (the sex).

In fact, Lewis said, the boy might wrongly regard the absence of chocolates as the chief characteristic of sexuality.  Lewis explained that

“...the reason why lovers in their carnal raptures don’t bother about chocolates is that they have something better to think of.  The boy knows chocolate: he does not know the positive thing that excludes it. We are in the same position. We know the sexual life; we do not know, except in glimpses, the other thing which, in Heaven, will leave no room for it.”

The story makes you smile; but we really are a lot like that kid. To us earthbound creatures, it sometimes seems that sitting around on a cloud, belting out Gregorian chant in some kind of nonstop heavenly sing-along with the angels.... Well, that sounds kind of boring!

And praying all the time? After all, an hour-long Mass on Sunday can seem like a long time when there's a baseball game to watch on TV and a steak to cook on the grill. But a real eternity, days stretching out into more days, as far as the mind can reach? With no smartphones, no Facebook, no reality TV? Heaven help us!

Australian illustrator and author Jane Seabrook, author of the “Furry Logic” series, quipped in her book  Laugh at Life, “If there's no chocolate in heaven, I'm not going!”

So what is heaven really like? When we get to the pearly gates, what will we see there?

There's God, of course; Jesus in all His resurrected glory, ready to welcome us. It's hard to imagine His great beauty and glory, but just looking upon Him will be our greatest pleasure.

And the other people! Grandma and Grandpa, family and friends we've loved, and others: the angels and saints, authors whose books we've treasured, presidents and kings, neighbors and childhood playmates, the Apostles and Mary Magdalen from the New Testament, and Old Testament figures like Abraham and David. The conversations with our fellow believers through the ages will be memorable.

Oh, about the food: You think Thanksgiving dinner was great? The feasts in heaven will be beyond anything we've enjoyed in this life. “...That you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom,” promises Jesus in Luke 22:30, “and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” And in Revelation 19:9, Jesus talks about the “marriage feast of the Lamb”—that  most extraordinary of all celebrations. Isaiah 25:6 is even more specific in naming the treats we can look forward to: “The Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, and refined, aged wine.”

And the views! If a walk in the woods or along the seashore is a highlight of your summer vacation, imagine the matchless beauty of the heavenly kingdom: a world of resplendent colors and ethereal harmonies never before experienced, a palette of wonderful works by the great God Who gave us fluffy kittens and fragrant rosebushes and breathtaking sunsets here on earth. (Revelation 21-22 gives us a glimpse of the majestic heavenly kingdom which John envisioned while on the island of Patmos.)

The human mind was created for learning—so there will be new pleasures to enchant, new discoveries to pique the imagination, at every turn. But always, forever, there will be God; and before the empyreal fire and light of His face, our hearts will sing. We won't miss our peanut butter cups.