Ben Sasse reveals terminal cancer, points to faith in Christ: ‘A real Deliverer’

December 24, 2025

Former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse has disclosed that he has Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and will soon die but has also expressed hope in Jesus Christ and Heaven.

The Christian Post reports that 53 year-old Sasse, who represented Nebraska in the U.S. Senate from 2015 to 2023, revealed the bad news Tuesday in a post on X.

Sasse wrote, “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. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.”

“As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come. Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in),” Sasse added.

According to the Christian Post, Sasse concluded his announcement by pointing to Jesus and noting, “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,”

Before resigning mid-term in 2023 to serve as president of the University of Florida, Sasse first won election to the U.S. Senate in 2014 with a landslide victory, winning all of Nebraska’s 93 counties.

He was reelected in 2020 with record support, and his Senate career was focused on cybersecurity threats, First Amendment issues and conservative judicial nominations.

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