The following is told of Mahatma Gandhi:

Mahatma Gandhi is fasting to protest the riot killings that followed the partition that created Hindu India and Moslem Pakistan in 1947. A fellow Hindu approaches to confess a great wrong. “I killed a child,” says the distraught man. “I smashed his head against a wall.” “Why?” asks the Mahatma (Hindu for “Great Soul”). “They killed my boy. The Moslems killed my son.” “I know a way out of hell,” says Gandhi. “Find a child, a little boy whose mother and father have been killed, and raise him as your own. Only be sure he is a Moslem–and that you raise him as one.”

Nothing weighs more heavy on the conscience than guilt.  It keeps us up at night.  It robs us of our appetite.  It makes our days long and our nights short.  In fact it drove Judas to self-destruction (Matt. 27:1-4).  When the man comes to Gandhi it is evident that guilt is weighing heavy on him.  So terrible is it that Gandhi refers to it as “hell,” and thus offers the man a way for his conscience to be released from his abyss. Yet Gandhi’s way is no way at all.

This man was infected with sin that no about of good deeds could cure.  He needed the deep lasting cleansing that comes only from the person and work of Christ – specifically His blood.

Hebrews 9:14 reminds us that the blood of Christ purifies our consciences from dead works to the praise and worship of the living God.  Unfortunately Gandhi instructed the man to perform dead works – works that promote self-righteousness and vindication but does not purify the conscience in the sight of God.

The work that needs to take place for the liberty and washing of the conscience is not work done with my our hands.  It is the work of Christ on our behalf.  When the guilt of my sin weighs me down, it is not my blood and sweat that needs to be applied, but the blood and sweat of Jesus.