The internet has a lot of posts and videos on the Lords Prayer. The one I like best is by Rowan Williams, once Archbishop of Canterbury. Read it here
Why do I like it? Because of the way it explains one of the most difficult parts of the prayer...
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. It's those two words 'as we'. It sounds like our forgiveness by God depends on us having done the same for everyone who has hurt or upset us. Yet this flies in the face 1 John 1:9. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Nothing conditional about our forgiveness here!
Rowan Williams explains it like this. God forgives us and then steps back and says now you show me how to forgive.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
"Forgive us our trespasses" is in some ways the hardest bit of the Lord's Prayer to pray, because it tells us straight away that to pray is also to be willing to change.
And it takes a lot of nerve to come before God and say forgive me because I have forgiven someone else. And I don't always feel I'm really up to making that that kind of claim on God. But I think it's saying that it's through God's forgiveness of us that we learn how to forgive. It's in our capacity to forgive that we show we've been forgiven.
It reminds us that our own ability to forgive comes from the fact that we're aware of God's forgiveness of us and that unless that really sinks in then we shan't be able to forgive. And it's no good then turning back to God and saying forgive me, I haven't even begun to hear what forgiveness means, I don't know the meaning of the word.
Jesus tells us that very powerful story about the King's servant who's let off his debt and then goes straight off and puts another servant in prison because he owes him a small amount of money. And he underlines the point there that unless you forgive you can't receive forgiveness; you've just made yourself incapable of receiving forgiveness.
So it's a bit of a vicious circle of I don't forgive I can't be forgiven. If I can't hear the word of forgiveness and really let it change me, then I shan't be able, I shan't be free to forgive, so this is quite a sobering prayer about forgiveness.
But there's a wonderful image in one of the early church fathers about this. He says that it's a bit like teaching a child to do something. The parent does it carefully a few times, then steps back and says now you show me. God forgives us and then steps back and says now you show me how to forgive.
Read the full post by Rowan Williams here