“This is the fourth week that poor child has been searching,” explained Renee Schulz, author and director of last week’s sketch about Hannah’s quest for the meaning of life.
“In her first attempt, during a one and one-half day fast in which she got “really hungry,” she encountered Jesus in the wilderness at the end of his 40-day fast. Of course, she didn’t know whom she was talking to.
Next, she traveled to Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth to talk to his friends and neighbors.
Bethany was next. Hannah crashed a party celebrating Lazarus’ rising from the dead.
Last Sunday at the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake, she was in Jerusalem, having just missed in her fourth attempt to find Jesus.
He has just driven the money changer out of the Temple after becoming enraged at the desecration of His Father’s house.
The place was a mess.
Relatives of the stall keepers are cleaning up when Hannah arrives.
But first Pastor Heath set the stage.
“Sometimes God has to do something to shake our foundations…You know God has to knock us upside down…to get out attention.
“Maybe you need to get a little deeper to see who this Jesus really is.”
Hannah talks with some of the girls doing the clean-up.
“I think Jesus was just trying to tell us something,“ she says.
“Maybe he just has a bad fig,” a girl replies.
“I’ve been searching for Jesus for three years,” Hannah inserts.
Hannah is pleased with Jesus’s display of anger.
“So, what’s with the anger?” she asks. “Now he’s starting to look like a king. I like it…
“You two are probably too busy googling over some Peter, Paul or Andrew,” Hannah observes in typical anachronistic manner, using a modern broom to do some kung fu kingly moves before she is warned that they could get her kicked out of the Temple.
Deliverer of the serious message of the day, Rebekah, played magnificently by Suuann Fraser, asks,
Did you see him look at me?…He looked right through me.
While Rebekah is being reflective, her husband Benjamin, a stall keeper played by Brad Meador, is reflecting, too:
A day’s wages lost!
Conversing with Rebekah, Hannah says, “I’m very happy for you.”
“I feel like I could be a new woman,” Rebekah muses… “somehow I don’t feel trapped anymore.
“I feel like it opened a doorway for me to know God.
“Is it possible?
“Could God want to know someone like me?”
“I guess I’ve been tying to find a savior on my own terms,” Hannah realizes.
Then, Hannah sings a song from Nichole Nordema’s album “Brave”:
What if there’s more?
The first verse proposes that Jesus
was just another nice guy…What if He takes His place
In history with all the prophets
And the kings who taught us love
And came in peace,
But then the story ends?
The first part of the chorus delivers the message,
But what if you’re wrong?
What if there’s more?
Sunday, March 25, 2007, you can take the next step with Hannah as she tries to discover “if there is more.”
The service will be held at 11 AM at the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake. It is located at the intersection of Crystal Lake and Dole Avenues, both of which intersect Route 14 at traffic signals. Crystal Lake Avenue also crosses Route 31 east of town.
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Renee Schulz is in the photo on the top right.
In the top picture of the play, you can see Gabby Sexson on the left and Courtney Wilnewic on the right.
Pastor Heath is next, on the right hand side of the page.
Hannah is again played by first year Cary-Grove High School teacher Logan Fraser. the first shot of her has her holding a broom above her head right after the stall keeper tells her if she didn’t behave she might get kicked out of the Temple.
Fraser co-stars with her real life mother-in-law, Suanne Fraser, who plays Rebekah.
Rebecca’s “husband” Benjamin, the stall keeper, is Brad Meador.
The three girls are played by Courtney Wilnewic, Gabby Sexson and Jenni Meador.
Jenni Meador, Rebekah’s daughter is seen comforting her daughter below the credit line, as is Logan Fraser singing, “What if,” in front of what was on the projection screens during the skit.
All photographs can be enlarged by clicking on them.