While God was making a covenant for His people, Israel, with Moses on Mount Sinai, the Israelites were recklessly abandoning their Saviour and worshipping a golden calf. The Bible portrays God as angered at their betrayal and ready to destroy them. Moses pleads for them as a mediator, citing the Lord's saving of His people from Egypt and His promise to the ancestral patriarchs. In His mercy the Lord relented.

One greater than Moses is our mediator, Jesus Christ, who pleaded with His Father while suffering in agony on the cross. "Forgive them, for they know not what they do" includes the executioners, the hostile leaders, and all of us living today. He freely accepted death to redeem everyone of us from our sins and the punishment we deserve.

In the Gospel reading, Jesus points to His people's refusal to accept Him, His miracles, and His mission of mercy ordered by His Father. This rejection would last till the cross and even to our day and beyond. During Lent, we think of the sins of the world, and our own, by which we have all rejected the loving rule of the Father and intimate union with His Son. Prayers for the conversion of sinners and of gratitude for the Lord's mercy and blessings on us, would be the appropriate response of sincere Christians.