The former senator announced last week that he has advanced cancer and does not expect to survive.
The former senator announced last week that he has advanced cancer and does not expect to survive.
J ust before Christmas, Ben Sasse, who served as a United States senator from Nebraska between 2015 and 2023, announced that he has an advanced case of cancer and he’s going to die soon.
At one point, people talked about Sasse as a potential Republican presidential candidate. I always thought that he could have been the best civics teacher in the United States. His love of America is rooted in an understanding of the gift that our country is to the world and to individual human beings.
At a time when the dignity of human life is under attack, Sasse has been a godsend. He wrote on social media about this diagnosis:
This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad, I can’t begin to describe how great my people are during the past year, as we temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms. Melissa and I have grown even closer, and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have. Seven months ago, Corey was commissioned in the Air Force, and she’s off at instrument and multi engine rounds of flight school. Last week, Alex graduated from college a semester early. . . . This summer, 14-year-old Breck started learning to drive. . . . I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear hug this motley crew of sinners and saints.
And that is what we are. We are all human beings, and we have deadlines. Just as I sat down to write this column, I got a prayer request for an infant who doesn’t have a fully developed brain and is dying. Sometimes it happens that quickly. Sometimes it takes a few decades. But we all face death eventually. And even though we all face it, it still hurts. It’s still painful. It still is something we’re not fully prepared for.
My home state of New York is likely to soon become the 13th U.S. state to legalize assisted suicide. There are so many pressures in our lives and our culture. This is one reason why I write a lot about abortion. In our daily lives, we need to combat various problems — which can include the unexpected pregnancy, the child we are not prepared for. Assisted suicide presents a similar challenge. How many of us already feel as if we are a burden because of whatever problems we impose on those around us? And then if we have an adverse diagnosis? If we have advanced cancer? We don’t want to be a burden on others, especially the ones we love the most, and yet we are called to live each day to the fullest. With faith that each day, each hour, each minute, each second has meaning.
“During advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope — often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears,” Sasse wrote. “Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well” — he’s from Nebraska, after all — “look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet.”
The birth of our Lord is a testimony to how much he loves us. God Himself became one of us to save us. Even if you’re not Christian, please understand that human life is precious and rooted in something beyond us. We are creations, and this changes everything.
Please pray for Ben Sasse and his family. Also, look up some of his Senate speeches. His capacity for gratitude for the American experiment is something we need to aspire to. His love for the United States of America could transform the way we live our lives. And that is the gift he has been to us. I pray for miracles for him, and I pray for miracles for us — because the world needs renewal. God bless the Sasse family and the America they love.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.