Christ will hand over the kingdom to his God and Father so that God may be all in all. On this last Sunday of the Church Year, the universal Church celebrates the Solemnity of Christ the King (of the universe). It is an appropriate feast for concluding the liturgical calendar, for it reminds us not only of the centrality of Christ in the ongoing creative process, but also of the sovereign power that Christ has over creation. Jesus Christ is not only the Word through whom God created the world (cf. John 1:3; Colossians 1:16), but he is also the one through whom the created world is redeemed/saved (cf. Matthew 1:21; John 3:16-18). When the Church, therefore, invites us on this last Sunday of her calendar year to the adoration of Jesus Christ as King of the universe, she does so in recognition that Jesus Christ is the alpha and the omega of our lives. 
As a celebration that concludes the Church calendar year, the feast of Christ the King, as it were, summarizes the individual celebrations of Christ’s saving acts that take place within the calendar year, from the celebration of his birth at Christmas to the celebration of his resurrection at Easter. Consequently, the feast of Christ the King celebrates not only the person of Jesus Christ but also his kingship (reign). Whereas Jesus’ reign as the king and savior of the universe is eternal, when he assumed our nature and dwelt in our midst, he afforded us a peek into the kind of king he is. In the three or so years of his ministry, Jesus Christ showed himself as a King who is unlike the kings that we know. For whereas the kings of the world are known to “lord” it over their subjects (cf. Mark 10:42), it was not so for Jesus. From the Scriptures, we see that Jesus is a shepherd-king and not a lord-king. Rather than lord it over his subjects, we see Jesus’ kingly rule being exercised in his care for his subjects. Jesus is a king who shepherds his subjects, a king whose interest in not in himself but rather in the welfare of his subjects. As a shepherd-king, Jesus relates to his subjects not as a ruler and his submissive subjects but rather as a shepherd and his sheep who look up to him for protection and care. In the manner in which he discharged his kingly responsibility, Jesus Christ became the embodiment of the ideal shepherd whom God had promised to raise for his people (First Reading). 
Jesus himself understood his role as that of a shepherd (cf. John 10:1ff). He understood his ministry as that of reaching out to his brothers and sisters who had lost their way in order to bring them back to the right path. He understood his ministry as that of ‘injecting’ life to a world whose bloodline was slowly waning away. Jesus achieved this by putting to death the one enemy that was choking life out of the world: the sin of self-centeredness (selfishness). As a good shepherd, Jesus took upon his shoulders the sins of the world so that those who were in the world could learn to live once again as members of one flock. Most importantly, he undertook to carry on his shoulders his brothers and sisters so that they could in turn become shepherds of one another (one another’s keeper). He showed the world the means to returning to the original purity and harmony of the Garden of Eden. By leading selfless lives while taking care of the needs of one another, it would be possible for men and women to regain the image and likeness of God that was gifted them by the Creator. 
Unlike in the days of Prophet Ezekiel when only a select few were raised as shepherds of God’s people, in Jesus Christ God has shared with every baptized man and woman this important shepherding responsibility. Taking care of the vulnerable in our midst is a collective responsibility of all the members of the flock. For as today’s Gospel Reading affirms, it is how well we discharge our shepherding role that will be the standard for our judgment when the Day of the Lord finally arrives. The criteria that Jesus the judge will use to separate the righteous from the unrighteous will not be so much the sin of commission but that of omission. On the day of judgement, the Lord will not inquire from us how many times we went to Church but rather how many of our brothers and sisters that we raised from their beds of hunger, nakedness, cold, and loneliness. 
Even as we celebrate in adoration Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, today’s feast is also an invitation for us to do some stock-taking. Today’s reflection is a time for us to look back into the year that is ending and ask ourselves if we have lived up to our billing as those with whom God share’s the shepherding responsibility. When the time comes for Jesus to hand over the kingdom to the Father, will I be invited to stand at his right side? When the time comes for the righteous to inherit the blessed life prepared for them by the Father, will I be found to have been a faithful shepherd to my brothers and sisters?