Preparation: Inspired by your Spirit, Lord, we gather in your temple to welcome your Son.  Enlighten our minds and lay bare our inmost thoughts.  Purify your people, and make us obedient to the demands of your law, so that we may mature in wisdom and grow to full stature in your grace.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.

First Reading: Isaiah 40, 21-end. If you think you’ve understood God, whatever it is you’ve understood isn’t God. Isaiah helps us to realise that God is beyond our understanding – but in reach of our trust and love.               

Psalm 147, 1-12. Response: Sing praise to the Lord, O Jerusalem.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 9, 16-23. Paul talks about the way in which he has sacrificed his own identity – someone of good standing in both Jewish and Greek society – so that through his Jesus might become known.

HOLY GOSPEL: Mark 1, 29-39. This is one of the first episodes of Jesus’ ministry in Mark’s gospel, and it sets the tone: healings, deliverance, preaching – and that sense of urgency, always moving on. The kingdom is coming!