I‘m not cool enough to know Juice Wrld’s full repertoire. My musical knowledge for the most part stops at 2000 — yes I’m still stuck in the 90s when it comes to the majority of my musical points of reference. The other day, though, I stumbled across the official video for “Lean Wit Me,” the third single on his debut album, Goodbye & Good Riddance. This is some legit low anthropology and a cry for help in the vein of Romans 7. 

An inversion of the optimism inherent in Bill Withers’ classic, “Lean on Me,“ “Lean Wit Me“ is a cry for someone to join him in his addiction, in his mess. There’s a play on words here, as “lean” is a type of narcotic. It’s a cry for what we all need and crave: empathy. Ultimately, we want to be known, not judged. A casualty of the present epidemic of drug addiction that characterizes much of the “emo hip hop” scene, Juice knew he would never get better. Likewise, the wise person knows he or she will never recover from the sin that dwells in us (cf. Rom 7:18). 

Thank God we have a Savior who “leans* with us” — who became our sin, bore our griefs, and carried our sorrows. We don’t need a law saying “do this” or “don’t do that” — we need mercy that identifies with us and thereby makes us clean.

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