30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.
Finding grace with God, or should I say, having grace extended to you is the greatest kindness ever. The angel announces to Mary that grace is being given to her. When she hears the news, I am not sure that she would hear it as grace. Here Mary is, engaged, still a virgin, and the angel comes to tell her that she will get pregnant without having sex. Even she understands the biology of this. How is she going to explain this to her fiancé? And to her parents? Her friends in the neighborhood? Talk about complicated grace, this certainly is a good example of it. Sometimes grace comes to us in complicated packages. Our first reaction might be to reject the package because we reason, how could something good come out of something that appears so bad? How can grace come from sickness? How can God use the death of a loved one for our good? How can financial ruin turn out good? The questions can go on for a long time. But if we have given our lives over to the Lord, then every circumstance is a grace from God. He will use everything for our good. He turns the manure that gets put on our plate into fertilizer that builds our future harvest. I am pretty sure Mary had some of these same kinds of questions swarming in her mind, but she chose to see the grace in the moment. She chose to accept the words of the angel. This favor came in a very unusual package. She lived with the consequences of that package her whole life. Even when Jesus was a grown man there were still snide comments and questions of a judgmental nature that were thrown at him. I am sure Mary had similar questions thrust at her. I am sure there were some who still kept their distance, whose glances in the market spoke a condemning word. But Mary heard the favor and accepted it.
The Arnold Journey 