Former Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse announced on X that he was "diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer" last week "and am gonna die," but "I’m not going down without a fight."

Sasse made himself a target in the GOP by criticizing then-former President Trump, even voting to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, and resigned his office to become president of the University of Florida, last year enduring a review of his expenses by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis.

"Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence," Sasse wrote in a hopeful post that shares his children's recent accomplishments and his "hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place," as the Advent season presages.

He distinguished real hope from "abstract hope in fanciful human goodness ... vague hallmark-sappy spirituality" and a "bootstrapped hope in our own strength," which is better called optimism. 

"It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son," Sasse wrote.

He will elaborate more in the future about how he plans to live through cancer. "One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived."

Public officials and prominent conservatives responded with gratitude and prayers for Sasse, including National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya and Vice President J.D. Vance.