As the search for Nancy Guthrie enters its ninth week, Savannah Guthrie has revealed how the disappearance of her 84-year-old mother has made her question her faith.
The Today co-host shared the emotional message on Easter Sunday (April 5) during a YouTube livestream from her local church, Good Shepherd New York. Savannah, who is set to return to Today this week, opened up about her “dark” feelings and how the lack of answers about her mother’s whereabouts has seen her facing tough questions.
Nancy has been missing since January 31, when police believe she was abducted from her home in Tucson, Arizona. Since then, investigators have released doorbell camera footage of a masked suspect and shared a description of the potential abductor. No suspects have been named.
“We celebrate today the promise of a new life that never ends in death. But standing here today, I have to tell you, there are moments in which that promise seems irretrievably far away,” Savannah said in her video message, per People. “When life itself seems far harder than death.”
She continued, “These moments of deep disappointment with God, the feeling of utter abandonment. For most of us, there will come a time in our life when these feelings hold sway.”
Savannah admitted to questioning whether Jesus “experienced every single emotion that we humans can feel,” asking if he “ever experienced this particular wound that I feel, this grievous and uniquely cruel injury of not knowing, of uncertainty and confusion and answers withheld.”
“In those darkest moments, I have thought bitterly and perhaps irreverently that I have stumbled upon a feeling that Jesus did not know,” the long-time TV host added, noting how the gospels taught how Jesus “knew” of his fate, “And so I thought he never suffered this excruciating not knowing.”
But amid her “spirit’s utter darkness,” Savannah said she “remembered three days in the grave. No one talks much about that. We focus mostly on Easter. Of course we do. We cut to the happy ending and the joy of Sunday morning. And yes, we do observe the Friday before the agony of crucifixion. We mourn by candlelight that darkest night. But after Jesus died, after he breathed his last, what did he actually know?”
“On the cross, he cried out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ That is the anguished cry of someone who does not know the answers,” she stated.
Savannah acknowledged that her message is perhaps “too dark” to share on Easter morning, “but I have long believed that we miss out on fully celebrating resurrection if we do not acknowledge the feelings of loss, pain, and yes, death.”
She concluded, “I see a bright vision of the day when heaven and earth pass away because they are one on earth as it is in heaven. When we celebrate today, this is what we celebrate. And I celebrate too. I still believe. And so I say with conviction: Happy Easter.”
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