Former Senator Ben Sasse announced a stage-four pancreatic cancer diagnosis and reflected on hope rooted in his Christian faith.
Sasse has been diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, he announced December 23 on X. The former Republican senator from Nebraska held office from 2015 to 2023, then served as the University of Florida’s 13th president.
“There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst,” he posted. “As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.”
Friends-
This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.
Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence.…
— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) December 23, 2025
Before his time in the Senate, Sasse was president of Midland University in Nebraska, according to publicly available biographical records. He also worked in the Department of Health and Human Services, and worked as an assistant professor at the University of Texas-Austin.
Throughout his career, Sasse wrote two books: The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis – and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance, and Them: Why We Hate Each Other – and How to Heal.
Finding Hope
Sasse said he is grateful for his family, “amazing siblings,” and close friends who are “genuinely brothers.”
“Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too – we all do,” he said. “Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all. Still, I’ve got less time than I’d prefer.”
He highlighted his family’s recent accomplishments – with a daughter joining the Air Force, another graduating college early, and a son learning to drive.
“I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints,” he said.
Sasse said he did not have “abstract hope in fanciful human goodness,” nor hope in human strength.
“Often we lazily say ‘hope’ when what we mean is ‘optimism,’” Sasse said. “A well-lived life demands more reality – stiffer stuff,” he said. “That’s why, during advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope – often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.”
Sasse said he is “not going down without a fight,” citing medical advances in things like immunotherapy. He said his family is facing “the reality of treatments,” and he plans to share more.
“Death and dying aren’t the same,” Sasse said. “The process of dying is still something to be lived.”
In the recent announcement, he and his family wished readers peace, “with gravelly-but-hopeful voices.”
“Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment,” Sasse said. “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.”
