Mt. Tabor, one in Israel, one possibility for the Transfiguration story.
“Think of this passage itself as a “high mountain” at the center of Mark’s Gospel. On one side, we climb up through stories of Jesus’ healing, liberating ministry. And on the other side, we’ll descend to the cross. Today, we arrive at a clearing on the mountaintop — and from here we can survey both how far we’ve come and the Lenten journey ahead.
“Epiphany concludes today: Jesus has “shown forth” to be a healer and a liberator; a teacher and a shining prophet. The “unclean spirit” has called him “the Holy One of God;” Peter has called him “the Messiah” (Mark 8:29). But most fundamentally and decisively, he is God’s beloved child. His path of love will lead down into the valley, through the dry cinders of Ash Wednesday and the tears of the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrow, all the way to Easter Sunday and the Way of Life.
“Mark’s central point in the Transfiguration story is this: the suffering and death of Jesus may at first appear as an unthinkable, desecrating defeat, but it’s actually a step toward a dramatic, subversive victory. Jesus will now venture into the shadows of death — precisely in order to scatter those shadows once and for all, overcoming them in the end with shimmering light. ”