It’s been nearly two months since Nancy Guthrie, the 84 year-old mother of the TODAY show host Savannah Guthrie, was kidnapped from her home in Tucson, Arizona. On Easter Sunday, Savannah to having a “deep disappointment in God” as her mom remains missing.
During the Easter mass service at her church Good Shepard New York, Savannah shared what the Easter holiday means to her in a recorded message.
Savannah’s Easter Message
Savannah, 54, began by wishing viewers a “Happy Easter” before saying that this holiday is typically known for “baby bunnies,” “joy” and “hope.” However, for Savannah, this Easter holiday has been far more difficult, as she’s been in a “season of trial” as of late.
“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. When life itself seems far harder than death,” Savannah said. “These moments of deep disappointment with God, the feeling of utter abandonment.”
“For most of us, there will come a time in our lives when these feelings hold sway,” she continued. “In our tradition, we are taught to take comfort in the fact that our friend, Jesus, in his short life, experienced every single emotion that we humans can feel.”
“That his taking on the form of humanity made him not a distant observer to our pain, but a hands-on experiencer of it,” Savannah added. “Recently, though, in my own season of trial, I have wondered… I have questioned whether Jesus ever experienced this particular wound that I feel.”
Savannah went on to describe this as being “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,” Savannah admitted. Her reasoning behind this being that despite Jesus’ suffering, he “knew” what would happen. “And so I thought he never suffered this excruciating not knowing.”
Savannah’s Easter Revelation
Despite this, Savannah’s “wrestling with God” ultimately led her to a powerful revelation.
“Suddenly, I remembered the grave. I remembered three days in the grave,” Savannah stated. “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 told viewers.
It was this revelation that caused Savannah to conclude that Jesus knows exactly what she’s going through right now.
Savannah ended this Easter message by saying that while it’s “dark,” it’s also important to celebrate all the aspects of this holiday.
“Perhaps this is too dark a message 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,” Savannah said. “It is the darkness that makes this morning’s light so magnificent, so blindingly beautiful. It is all the brighter because it is so desperately needed.”
“So, I close my eyes this morning and I feel the sunshine,” 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.”
Watch Savannah’s full Easter video for yourself below.
Nancy Goes Missing
Nancy was last seen on the night of Saturday, January 31. That evening, she had dinner with her daughter Annie and son-in-law Tommaso Cioni. They dropped her off at home afterwards at around 9:45pm, and she tragically hasn’t been seen since.
A masked intruder was captured on Nancy’s doorbell ring camera in the early hours of February 1. He managed to cover the camera with some plants before moving forward with the kidnapping.
It has since been revealed that the masked man had been seen in the doorbell ring camera prior to the night Nancy was taken. This indicates that he may have been casing out her home.
This has clearly been a nightmarish few months for Savannah and her entire family. As Savannah prepares to return to TODAY, please join us in saying a prayer for the return of Nancy Guthrie.