ben sasse

It almost sounds like the beginning of a classic joke – a reporter and a former politician walk into a New York City bar.

Only the latter is Ben Sasse, a dying man battling five types of cancer, and still alive three months beyond his projected survival. The reporter is John McCormack, senior editor at The Dispatch. They recently sat down in a New York City establishment for a drink and a conversation. 

Ben Sasse, a former U.S. Senator from Nebraska, who also served a stint as president of the University of Florida, has been suffering and declining very publicly. His podcast, “Not Dead Yet: A Joyful Rebellion,” is a series of poignant and practical conversations laced with gallows humor – a reflection of both the firmness of his faith and the playful spirit of a man who sees life as a gift.

Earlier this spring, Mr. Sasse sat down with Focus on the Family president Jim Daly, sharing his convictions and the eternal perspective that’s enabled him to power through the pain and grief of his diagnosis. A committed believer in Jesus Christ, he grew up in a Christian home and said he’s known himself to be a sinner for as long as he can remember.

It’s this foundation that frames and informs everything he’s faced this past year.

“We often come to a feast around a table thinking of ourselves first, which is why even our most lavish meals are mere crumbs,” he told Daly. “In Heaven, we’ll sit at a table, and there will be joy and peace and fulfillment because Jesus sits on the throne, and we, His sons and daughters, will eat and drink deeply from His goodness.”

Ben Sasse’s conversation with McCormack covered some of the same topics but also dipped into regrets the former senator has about his time in Washington, D.C. 

It seems Ben wasn’t all that excited about running for Congress. Coming from academia, he underestimated how much time it took him away from his family – upwards of eight months a year. He said he actually only ran because he thought campaigning would be fun.

“If I had it to do over again, dinner would be more precious,” he told McCormack. “Sundays would be different. Digital fasts would be more common.”

Whether running for Congress or not, all of us have a finite number of dinners and Sundays with our family. It shouldn’t take a terminal diagnosis to remind us of that fact, but we tend to act like we’ll live forever until we’re reminded otherwise.

Given his own hard-earned lessons, how would Ben counsel those considering a run for public office?

According to Sasse, he tells people with young children not to throw their hat in the ring at all. 

“I don’t think it makes sense to run if you have little kids at home right now,” he reflected. Instead, he says if “you’re a little bit older and you don’t have day-to-day obligations and you’re content to lose,” then go ahead.

But then Ben Sasse drilled a bit deeper beyond mere demographics and described the type of politician we need more of in our nation’s capital. 

“It would be great if we had more healthy normies run for office right now,” he told McCormack. 

What’s a healthy normie?

That’s internet slang for someone who is mentally and socially well-adjusted. It’s someone more focused on Main Street than Wall Street, who is stable and recognizes what Americans think, care, and dream about. A healthy normie sees people of faith as positive, productive and additive. They love the Lord, their family, and their country. 

They recognize that all life is sacred, that marriage between one man and one woman is the plan, that children are a blessing and not a burden, and that all our rights are from God and not the government. They recognize there are only two genders and that a man cannot be a woman and a woman cannot be a man.

They’re not malcontents or misfits committed to reimagining multi-millennial norms. They’re happy, excited and enthusiastic about their lives, their families, and their country.

Doesn’t that sound refreshing?

Within a sinful world, evil and wicked forces are constantly trying to revolt against the “healthy normie” lifestyle. This is why the Apostle Paul urged believers in Rome, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (12:2). 

Ben Sasse is using his final days to encourage us to learn from his mistakes and make the most of the remaining time we’re given. He may not be physically healthy anymore, but his spirit and mind are healthier than most people who are currently cancer free. 

May the Lord bless and be merciful to Ben Sasse and his family. 

There are times in life when one feels as if he is standing on holy ground. Perhaps at the time of salvation, the birth of a child, or the funeral of a loved one who is assured to be in heaven. 

Recently, I experienced one of those times when I was present for Focus on the Family president Jim Daly’s interview of former U.S. Senator, Ben Sasse of Nebraska for both his daily radio program, Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and its accompanying podcast, ReFocus.

I greeted Mr. Sasse outside the door of the church where the interview was held, and he said, “Hi, I’m Ben.” I could not, did not, want to call him by his first name, but in keeping with his stature and my long involvement in the political sphere, referred to him in the manner most comfortable to me, if no longer expected by him, ‘Senator.’

Senator Sasse was diagnosed last December with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, which had already metastasized to other organs, including his liver. The first sign, last October, was anguishing pain in his midsection caused by numerous tumors that have grown around his spine.

Given about four months to live, which will be hopefully prologued by a clinical trial he is undergoing, the former senator and University of Florida president, and current husband and father of three is eternally focused. Ben Sasse says that God’s creation, including our bodies, is glorious, but as time progresses grows strongly dim — his more dim than others.

Mr. Sasse said his prognosis has given him a renewed value in things that he considers most important, and he gave observance of the Lord’s Day, as an example. His family, wife, Melissa, two adult daughters and a teenage son, always went to church on Sunday, but now observe the entire day. Their sabbath is about being restful, keeping their devices quiet, and doing things together. Psalms 46 tell us three primary things: to not fear, to not strive, and to be still.

On the subject of suffering, Mr. Sasse said that God tells us everything we need to know in Scripture, but not everything we want to know. So, we do not often know why people suffer. However, He will use our suffering for His good. We are finite, but He is omnipotent. The duty for us during suffering is to remain faithful, keep reading the Bible, keep praying, and use the suffering to make us stronger, as if we are in God’s gymnasium.

The Sasse family practices a philosophy of “not dead yet” – a phrase from a movie. They attend church and visit both nursing homes and cemeteries in a desire to purposely embrace mortality. We are on a pilgrimage, a bridge to eternity, but we cannot place our hopes on the temporal. “We don’t build our dream house on a bridge,” he said.

He feels that we should respect all things God created, including government — considering his former vocation — as it exists to restrain evil. But he emphasized that those things are to be celebrated but not made idols of. He quoted St. Augustine that a person can even love a pet so much that they make an idol of it.

Finally, Mr. Sasse acknowledges that all humans have a death sentence, i.e., we cannot get out of this world alive (short of the rapture) but that his death sentence has a finite time stamped on it, barring a miracle, and how that has given him focus. And suffering is part of his timeline, a way in which he can further glorify God with his life, and now, with his impending death.

Our calling is to be human, made in God’s image, but we too often fall into rebellion. We should seek to be like the Second Adam. Suffering came through the first Adam. Life came from the Second. Death is our last enemy to conquer, and then there will be no more tears. And while it grieves him to think of leaving his wife a widow, his daughters with no father to walk them down the aisle, and his son without a dad with whom to pal around, he knows that one day, they will be together again.

Joel D. Vaughan is the Chief of Staff for Focus on the Family.