Dear Editor,
Don’t be surprised if you come across the name Ben Sasse more than once in the next few months. The 54-year-old former senator from Nebraska is on something of a farewell tour. You see, Ben Sasse is dying. In December he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given months to live.
And if the past month is any indication, Sasse is not going quietly. He has already made several moving interview appearances at places like Stanford University’s Hoover Institute and on the Christian podcast “Sola Media.” If that weren’t enough, he also started a podcast, aptly named “Not Dead Yet.”
In these interviews (which are well worth your time to seek out) Sasse talks about making peace with death and how he thinks about his own career in civic life now that it has come to such an abrupt end. Coming from a politician, the conversations are refreshingly honest.
Take for instance, Sasse’s commentary on today’s political dysfunction. He argues convincingly that one reason our politics has lost its way is that too many people have elevated our national politics to a level of importance that it was never meant to have.
The effect has been to turn our politicians into social media celebrities who would rather tweet than govern and who will do and say anything to stay in spotlight for as long as possible. (Compare that to the example of George Washington for whom service was a necessary sacrifice but when he had the chance to get back to Mount Vernon, he took it).
To be clear, Sasse’s message is not that politics doesn’t matter. At one point he calls the US Constitution the most important political document that has ever been written and he believes our constitutional system is worth fighting for. The problem, though, comes when we begin to think that politics is the center of life.
The Constitution at its best gives us a government as a means to a greater end. The government is meant to restrain evil and protect liberty so that we can then go outside and focus on the things that are far more important: loving our families, building healthy communities, and worshipping our God.
In that sense, Congress is kind of like the local sanitation department. The work they do is essential, but if I’m spending all my days watching news about their activities, something has gone badly wrong.
All this is a needful reminder from Sasse that the center of life is not in Washington, DC (or Hollywood or Wall Street or Silicon Valley). It is around the dinner table and at our jobs and in the church. These are the places where most of us will do our most meaningful God-honoring work. And these are the places that deserve our fullest attention.
One last thing. In watching all these interviews, it’s hard not to be moved by a man who can talk about his cancer diagnosis with a smile. I ask myself, could I face death with such peace?
Only once did I see Sasse get so emotional that he couldn’t speak. The moment came as he was explaining the gospel and what he believed Jesus’ death and resurrection had accomplished for him. His eyes filled with tears as he took a moment to collect himself.
And in those tears, I think, we find the secret to Ben Sasse’s smile.
