‘Deep disappointment with God’: Savannah Guthrie questions faith in somber Easter message as mom Nancy Guthrie remains missing

Savannah Guthrie shared an emotional Easter message as her mother, Nancy Guthrie, remains missing more than two months after her disappearance. The Today co-anchor, 54, recorded the message for Good Shepherd New York, her Lower Manhattan church, which uploaded an Easter livestream on Sunday, April 5.

It is among a handful of appearances the journalist has made since stepping away from Today after her mother disappeared from her Tucson, Arizona, home on Feb. 1. The message also came one day before Guthrie was scheduled to return to the NBC program.

During the livestream, Guthrie reflected on the meaning of Easter and the hope it represents in the Christian faith before acknowledging her personal struggles.


“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,” she said. “When life itself seems far harder than death.”

“These moments of deep disappointment with God, the feeling of utter abandonment,” she continued. “For most of us, there will come a time in our lives when these feelings hold sway.”

Guthrie went on to note that according to her faith, she has been taught to take comfort in the idea that Jesus also experienced pain. However, she admitted she has been grappling with difficult questions in her own life.

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“Recently though, in my own season of trial, I have wondered,” she said. “I have questioned whether Jesus really 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.”

She added that “it isn’t wrong to think such thoughts, to challenge our God with questions,” saying she wanted to fully acknowledge her feelings of loss and pain.

The journalist concluded her message by recognizing the somber tone of her reflections while emphasizing the significance of confronting grief during Easter.

“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,” Guthrie said in the livestream. “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.”

Nancy Guthrie was last seen entering the garage of her home on January 31 and was reported missing by her family on February 1 Surveillance footage from a doorbell camera reportedly shows a masked intruder walking up to the front door of her home the night of her abduction.

The Guthrie family is offering a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to Nancy’s recovery. A separate reward of $100,000 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation also remains active. No suspects have been identified in the case.