Tim Keller built Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan from a handful of people into one of the most influential churches in America. He wrote books that sold millions — The Reason for God, The Prodigal God, Prayer — works that shaped how an entire generation of Christians thought about faith in a sceptical world. He was the pastor that other pastors went to for wisdom.
In 2020, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
The Diagnosis
Pancreatic cancer. Of all the words a doctor can say, those two carry among the heaviest weight. The survival rates are stark. The treatment options are limited. For many people, a pancreatic cancer diagnosis is experienced not as a battle to be fought but as a sentence to be served.
Tim was sixty-nine when the news came. He had already survived thyroid cancer years earlier. He knew what the cancer road felt like. But this was different. This was the diagnosis that most people fear above all others.
The Fear
Tim did not pretend the fear was not there. In an earlier cancer surgery — for his thyroid — he had been rolled into the operating room gripped by anxiety. But as the anaesthetic began to work, something shifted. He caught a glimpse of God's glory — the magnitude of joy that existed beyond this world of pain and cancer and death. And a thought settled over him with absolute clarity: "It doesn't really matter how the surgery goes. Everything will be all right. Me, my wife, my children, my church — will all be all right."
He went to sleep with a bright peace on his heart. That experience became the foundation for everything that followed.
The Encounter
When pancreatic cancer arrived, Tim did not simply remember that old peace. He went deeper into it. What he found astonished even him.
He wrote words that sound impossible unless you have encountered the love of God at the bottom of a valley: "I can sincerely say, without any sentimentality or exaggeration, that I have never been happier in my life." And in the same breath: "It is equally true that I have never had so many days of grief."
Both were true. Simultaneously. Happiness and grief, living side by side, held together by a love that was bigger than either.
His prayer life transformed. He said, "I never want to go back to the prayer life I had before cancer." Not because cancer was a gift he wanted. Because cancer drove him to a depth of communion with God that he did not know was available. Fear dissolved — not because the threat was removed, but because the presence of God became so overwhelming that fear simply could not compete.
The Healing
Tim fought the cancer with treatment and with faith. He experienced seasons of improvement and seasons of setback. He continued to write, to think, to pray, to love the people around him with an intensity that cancer had sharpened rather than diminished.
Tim Keller passed away on 19 May 2023. He was seventy-two. His death was not the end of his testimony — it was the final chapter of a life that proved God's love is stronger than death itself.
What This Means for You
If you are facing cancer and the fear of death is the biggest thing in the room — Tim Keller walked that road before you. And he found something there that most people spend their whole lives looking for: a happiness that does not depend on the scan results. A peace that does not require a good prognosis. A love so deep that even pancreatic cancer could not reach the bottom of it.
You may be terrified right now. That is honest. That is human. But terror is not the final word. Tim Keller — one of the sharpest minds and deepest souls of his generation — walked into the darkest valley and said: I have never been happier. I have never prayed more deeply. I have never felt more held.
If that is possible for him, it is possible for you. Not because you are strong enough. Because God's love is.