Church of St. Peter 3: After the confession of the Messiah,

8:27-30, the suffering as a characteristic of the Messiah and of Christians (a heritage from the Jewish-Christian tradition) must be brought home to them, 8:31-9:1, before the transformation of Jesus into the heavenly Messiah can form the climax of this section and of the whole Gospel book up to 16:8.

Mark places the transformation of Jesus, 9:2-13, exactly in the mathematical center of the Gospel and thus shows the importance of this event. Jesus, however, is not flanked by angels, but by figures of the Jewish prehistory, Moses and Elijah.