Chocolate and more

I love this quote from a while back, and thought of it when we received all the gifts from the Antioch Church back home. One of the highlights of the many things we got is chocolate. So for enjoyment:
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The Fire and the Rose: A theology of chocolate

 

A Theology of Chocolate

1. Chocolate is a gift of God. Like rainbows, manna, tobacco, beer, and coffee, chocolate is an expression of divine favor toward humanity. “Every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (Jas. 1:17).

2. Chocolate is an event of human freedom accompanied by God (concursus dei) within the covenant of grace. Chocolate is not part of the original creation. The raw elements are found in nature, but human action had to bring these together in order to produce the glorious bar of chocolate that we now enjoy. While human autonomy often leads to the destruction and perversion of nature, chocolate is a testament to the divine accompanying of human action within the covenant of grace between God and humanity.

3. Chocolate is a christologically grounded reality. The Christ-event is an event which reconciled the world to God (2 Cor. 5:19). According to Ephesians, this event “has broken down the dividing wall” between Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 2:14); according to Galatians, all of us are now “one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28); according to 2 Corinthians, “everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17). Chocolate is a manifestation of this reconciliation. Chocolate unites people from around the world in appreciation of its artistic and God-given taste; it carries on its own “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18) by resurrecting dead taste faculties and offering nougat-filled glimpses into the grace of God.

4. Chocolate is a concrete manifestation of the coming eschatological kingdom. In the coming kingdom, the Lord will reveal the new heavens and new earth in which “death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). Chocolate is a taste of the coming regnum dei. In anticipation of what God will accomplish for all, here and now chocolate “wipes every tear from their eyes.” Chocolate is thus a proleptic realization of the New Jerusalem, which “has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel” (Rev. 21:11). In its own small way, chocolate ushers us into the presence of the eschatological community, where we will gather around the messianic banquet table and feast together as the one people of God.

   by David W. Congdon