Come down immediately!

Have you read the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19 recently? As I did so recently, I was struck by a sense of urgency and intensity in this story:

¹ Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. ² A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. ³ He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. ⁴ So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.  ⁵ When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” ⁶ So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

 ⁷ All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

 ⁸ But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

 ⁹ Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

There were no half-measures found in Jesus or Zacchaeus in this passage. Zacchaeus went to great lengths to see Jesus, and went in haste. Jesus' response was similar: "Come down immediately. I must stay at your house today." Zacchaeus responded with extravagance, giving up half of everything he owned to serve the poor and promising to use what was left to more-than-restore anything he'd received through deceit. Jesus in turn immediately extended a promise of salvation.

The only half measures here were from the watching crowd, who "muttered". They didn't even voice their grumbling aloud.

Where do we see ourselves in this story? Do we earnestly seek him? Or is our response to Jesus weak and half-hearted?