Tuesday in the Third Week of Lent

The Psalmist cried:  "Remember us Lord, remember your promise to your people, so you can guide us, and we can learn your ways."  That last bit is key.  When we request God to remember us, it is always for our benefit.  Azariah's pleas to God are not necessary because God needs to be goaded into compassion or because God has forgotten his promises.  Rather, the asking serves to remind the people that even their most sacred external laws are secondary to the internal condition of humbleness and contriteness.  They have genuinely remembered their God, and He will remember (and forgive) them.

Jesus, too, is helping us remember what God has already demonstrated - a desire to forgive.  In order to receive forgiveness and continue to be in relationship, we have to ask.  Asking for forgiveness is a form of remembering, of acknowledging that a debt is owed.  God knows full well what the debt is and what the consequence should be, but when the other party acknowledges his debt, He forgives.  Jesus warns that if we, like the servant, refuse to extend the mercy and compassion we have been given, we break the relationship - not just with our debtor, but with the One who has the ultimate ability to forgive all debts.  If we desire a relationship with each other and with a forgiving God, then we have to remember that we asked to extend forgiveness to others,  even when we have the right to refuse, we must choose to do so.