Ben Sasse’s Dignity in the Face of Death
In December, former Senator Ben Sasse announced that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. In the months since, the courage and dignity with which he has faced his diagnosis have been deeply inspiring. In this essay, Erich J. Prince shares what he has learned from the father of three.
Two days before Christmas, Ben Sasse, the former Senator from Nebraska, President of the University of Florida, and devout Christian, announced on X that he had been diagnosed with “metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer.” He did not mince words; he was “gonna die.” It was one of those events where I can remember precisely where I was when the first of my friends wrote to me, asking if I had heard the news about Ben Sasse.
Sasse’s post, which is beautifully written and well worth reading in its entirety, concedes that while death indeed pursues us all and is “a wicked thief,” Sasse’s faith remained entirely undiminished by his diagnosis: “Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment.” But Sasse crucially notes that “the eternal city…is not yet” and that “the process of dying is still something to be lived.” And in the time since announcing his diagnosis, despite enduring frequent waves of nausea and having to sleep upwards of fifteen hours per day, live he has.
Timeless reading in a fleeting world.
